{"id":7380,"date":"2016-01-21T10:58:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T15:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=7380"},"modified":"2016-01-21T10:58:26","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T15:58:26","slug":"prosecutor-fatal-shooting-involving-brick-officers-was-justifiable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/01\/prosecutor-fatal-shooting-involving-brick-officers-was-justifiable\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutor: Fatal Shooting Involving Brick Officers Was Justifiable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The immitation firearm used by Julian Hoffman during a fatal shooting incident in Brick. (Photo: OCPO)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Ocean County prosecutor has determined that the Aug. 23, 2015 fatal shooting of a Brick man by township police officers was justified and did not have to be presented to a grand jury.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato issued a statement Thursday morning detailing the facts of the incident, which occurred at about 10:50 p.m. in the Cherrywood Farm townhouse development off Lanes Mill Road. Three officers responded to a 911 call placed by Julian Hoffman, 21, who was later shot and killed. According to the report from the prosecutor\u2019s office, Hoffman called to report a \u201cdisturbance.\u201d\u00a0 When asked by the dispatcher to describe the nature of the disturbance, Hoffman responded that he was the disturbance. He told the dispatcher, \u201cI\u2019m raising hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

The responding officers were not specifically named in the report from the prosecutor\u2019s office, and were only referred to by number. Previously, the prosecutor had identified Officer Jay Nye, 31, a member of the department since 2011, and Ryan Osborn, 25, a member of the department since 2013, as being involved in the shooting.<\/p>\n

According to interviews conducted with the officers, the prosecutor determined that two officers were dispatched to the residence and arrived there within minutes.\u00a0 As the officers approached the door to the residence, they heard someone scream and several loud bangs. One officer approached the front door and rang the doorbell.\u00a0 The other officer was standing to the side of the door from a position that did not afford a view of the doorway. Hoffman answered the door with what appeared to be a handgun in his hand.<\/p>\n

Hoffman said, \u201cWhat\u2019s up? Do something,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

The officer who could see Hoffman yelled that Hoffman had a gun, at which point both officers quickly ran from the doorway area to take cover.\u00a0 They positioned themselves behind vehicles that were parked nearby, at which point Hoffman exited his residence with the weapon in his hand, the report said.<\/p>\n

He walked away from his residence and advanced toward the officers, according to the report. The officers were yelling commands for Hoffman to drop the weapon and not to advance on them, but Hoffman ignored the commands. A third Brick police officer arrived and assumed a position near the other two officers behind a vehicle.<\/p>\n

Hoffman then looked at the officers and said, \u201cJust do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite \u201cnumerous and repeated\u201d commands to Hoffman to drop his weapon, Hoffman began to raise the weapon in the direction of one of the Brick officers, according to the report. Fearing that Hoffman was about to shoot one of the officers, two of the officers discharged their duty weapons, fatally injuring Hoffman. A total of eight rounds were discharged by two of the officers \u2013 each shot four rounds. Three bullets struck Hoffman.\u00a0 The third officer did not fire.<\/p>\n

The weapon recovered from Hoffman was an imitation firearm, a photograph of which is attached to this story.<\/p>\n

An autopsy determined that Hoffman died as a result of a bullet wound to the chest.\u00a0 Toxicology results showed that Hoffman\u2019s blood alcohol level was .208 and there was evidence that he had ingested cocaine, according to the report.<\/p>\n

The investigation into the incident revealed that on the evening of Aug. 23, Hoffman and his girlfriend had an argument while they were attending a party.\u00a0 The argument continued as they drove home from the party.\u00a0 Once they arrived home, Hoffman told his girlfriend that he was going to \u201craise hell\u201d and was going to \u201ccall the cops,\u201d according to the report.\u00a0 He then retrieved what she described as a black BB gun from within the residence.<\/p>\n

The girlfriend told investigators that Hoffman pleaded with her to let him end his life.\u00a0 She apparently heard Hoffman call the police to \u201creport a disturbance\u201d.\u00a0 Hoffman then pushed his girlfriend into his bedroom and barricaded the door so that she could not leave the room.\u00a0 The girlfriend was in the bedroom during the encounter between Hoffman and the police.\u00a0 She did not see what transpired between Hoffman and the officers.<\/p>\n

Despite what was described as \u201cexhaustive efforts\u201d by the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office to preserve and analyze home security video evidence of the events which transpired between Hoffman and the officers which resulted in Hoffman\u2019s death from the homeowner\u2019s surveillance system, the investigation determined that no video evidence could be recovered because the homeowner\u2019s security system settings were programmed to overwrite video on a predetermined schedule to save storage space.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the prosecutor\u2019s office determined that the two officers used an \u201cacceptable level of force in unholstering, pointing and firing their weapons at Hoffman.\u201d The facts and circumstances \u201creasonably led\u201d the officers to believe that their actions in discharging their firearms were \u201cimmediately necessary to protect their own lives as well as the lives of the other officers present.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ocean County prosecutor has determined that the Aug. 23, 2015 fatal shooting of a Brick man by township police officers was justified and did not have to be presented to a grand jury. Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato issued a statement Thursday morning detailing the facts of the incident, which occurred at about 10:50 p.m. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,1605,1395],"class_list":["post-7380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-julian-hoffman","tag-shooting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Brick-Hoffman-Weapon.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1V2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}