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TRENTON
– The Attorney General’s Shooting
Response Team is conducting an investigation
into the circumstances surrounding a shooting
incident involving New Jersey state troopers
that occurred Friday evening, March 6, in
East Amwell.
According
to the preliminary investigation, state troopers
assigned to Kingwood Station were detailed
to a house on Amwell Road on a report of a
despondent man armed with a handgun. Troopers
arrived at the scene about 7 p.m., and encountered
the armed subject in the driveway of his home.
Nobody else was at the residence. Five troopers
responded to the scene. The man pointed a
handgun at his own head and fired several
shots into the ground. He did not comply with
trooper commands to put the gun down. The
armed man retreated into the house by a side
door, but re-emerged several times. He ultimately
pointed the handgun toward the troopers, causing
Trooper Robert Costanzo to fire several rounds
from a shotgun, striking the man once in the
buttocks. Troopers were then able to secure
him and call for medics. He was flown by helicopter
to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
in New Brunswick for treatment.
The
wounded subject was identified as Douglas
Smith, 47, of East Amwell. Smith was charged
with two counts of aggravated assault on a
trooper (2nd degree), possession of a weapon
for an unlawful purpose (2nd degree), five
counts of pointing a firearm at troopers (3rd
degree), and five counts of aggravated assault
(4th degree). Bail was set at $500,000 by
Superior Court Judge Roger F. Mahon in Hunterdon
County.
The
incident remains under investigation by the
Attorney General’s Shooting Response
Team. Under an Attorney General directive,
deputy attorneys general and detectives from
the Division of Criminal Justice and detectives
from the State Police Major Crime Unit are
dispatched to the scene to investigate shootings
involving the State Police. They were assisted
by the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s
Office.
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