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The beaten, bleeding woman had broken away from William J. Owens, 39, of Sicklerville (Camden County) during what had been a 3½-hour standoff with police.
Owens chased her, firing shots from a 9mm handgun, as the woman ran out an employee door into the parking lot of the UPS Mail Innovations facility on Birch Creek Road in Logan Township on Jan. 14, 2019, state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said Wednesday.
Owens left SWAT team members little choice.
Seven SWAT team officers discharged their weapons, hitting Owens 29 times, killing him, Grewal said.
After analyzing all of the facts and circumstances, state authorities concluded that “the use of force by each of the seven officers was justified under the law,” the attorney general said.
“An officer may use deadly force in New Jersey when the officer reasonably believes it is immediately necessary to protect the officer or another person from imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm,” Grewal said.
In this particular case, he said, “the facts and circumstances reasonably led them to believe their actions were immediately necessary to protect the hostage and others from death or serious bodily harm.”
Owens was armed with a 9mm handgun when he entered building around 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 14, 2019 and followed a female employee he once had a relationship with into the building, Grewal said.
He grabbed her once they were inside, fired a shot into the air and pistol-whipped a male security guard who came to her aid.
Owens took a second female employee hostage at gunpoint and “pointed his gun at various other people, saying he would kill everybody there and didn’t care,” Grewal said.
“Owens fired at least two additional shots while inside the building, causing employees to flee in terror,” the attorney general said.
Responding police officers tried to negotiate with him by phone as Owens “walked the two hostages around inside the building, subjecting them to continuous abuse and torment,” Grewal said.
He “brutally kicked and pistol-whipped” the first woman several times and “terrorized both hostages throughout the lengthy standoff,” pointing the gun at their heads, the attorney general said.
Owens “continued to make threats, vowing to kill the hostages, police officers and others,” he added.
Police entered the vast facility hoping to end the standoff, but Owens threatened to kill them and the hostages and saying they’d have to kill him, Grewal said.
The standoff ended shortly before noon, when the hostages got away.
Of the seven shooting officers, five were armed with .223 rifles and two, with 9mm sub-machine guns,” Grewal said.
Owens’s gun was found next to his body, he said.
Thomas J. Eicher, the director of Grewal’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, determined after a thorough investigation that “the presentation of the officer-involved shooting to a grand jury was not required,” the attorney general said.
“[T]he undisputed facts indicate the use of force was justified under the law and the incident occurred before the effective date of the law that requires all police shootings that result in death to be presented to the grand jury,” he said.
“The names of the seven law enforcement officers who fired at Owens are not being released because threats were made against the officers involved under circumstances that indicate releasing their identities could jeopardize their safety,” Grewal said.
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