NORTH BERGEN – On Saturday, Sept. 1, a man was shot to death by North Bergen police after he reportedly threatened to harm himself and others in his 83rd Street building.
According to nj.com, neighbors said he had slit his own throat with broken glass before the police confrontation.
The incident with the 47-year-old man occurred around 4 a.m.
According to published reports, police were called by a 60-year-old neighbor who said a man was threatening to harm himself and others in the building. The neighbor said he saw the man allegedly smash a bottle of liquor at the building’s entrance to then cut his throat with a piece of the broken bottle. Then the man ran into his apartment.
Police said that the man was holding a knife when they found him. They attempted to disarm him using pepper spray and a baton, which was unsuccessful.
Officers shot him in the chest, Hudson County Acting Prosecutor Guy Gregory said on Wednesday.
Officials said he was pronounced dead at 6:42 a.m. in North Bergen’s Palisade’s Medical Center. Neighbors said that the man was a Guatemalan immigrant that worked as a landscaper and lived alone.
Gregory said the autopsy showed additional wounds to his head, neck and abdomen that may have been self inflicted.