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Hui Zhang, 33, of Pensacola, FL, was seen in area surveillance video crashing his car into two others that were stopped at the corner of Straight and Van Houten streets late on the afternoon of Oct. 10, 2022.
Zhang fled the scene, leaving his car behind, then threatened a group of people who were sitting in a car parked around the corner with what looked like a gun.
Zhang fired the weapon, then tried and failed to carjack another vehicle on Van Houten Street when Detective Victor Lora came running up.
Lora “was on duty but on a personal errand and in plain clothes,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said. “Because of his assignment, he was not equipped with a body-worn camera.”
The 16-year department veteran “ordered Mr. Zhang to drop the apparent firearm he had in his hand,” the attorney general said.
“According to multiple witnesses, Mr. Zhang pointed what appeared to be a handgun at Detective Lora,” Platkin said. “In response, Detective Lora fired his weapon.”
Zhang was pronounced dead 4:23 p.m., a shade over 10 minutes from the time of the crash.
The New Jersey State Police Ballistics Unit determined the weapon that Zhang fired was a 9-mm P.A.K. Zoraki semiautomatic pistol that fires blanks, complete with a muzzle flash and explosive sound of a gunshot.
State law requires Platkin's office to investigate all deaths that occur in New Jersey “during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent is in custody," no matter what the circumstances are.
The guidelines guarantee that the investigation by his Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) is done “in a full, impartial and transparent manner," removing politics or personal agendas.
Once the investigation was completed, the results were presented to a grand jury, Platkin said.
The grand jurors reviewed interviews of witnesses, photographs, and the surveillance camera footage, as well as State Police ballistics tests and autopsy results from the medical examiner.
HERE ARE THE SURVEILLANCE VIDEOS: njoag.box.com/s/qvdwm2pzgazpxnjsy40cnz3nwa9h57nj
Based on the evidence, the grand jurors found no wrongdoing on the detective’s part, Platkin said.
They returned what’s known as a no-bill, essentially validating Lora’s actions as both legal and necessary to protecting himself and the public.
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