HAMMONTON
- The Attorney General’s Shooting
Response Team is conducting an investigation
into the circumstances surrounding a shooting
early this morning in which a member of
the Atlantic County Emergency Response Team
fatally shot a man who allegedly pointed
a gun at another man in Deptford and later
engaged in a standoff with police at a house
in Hammonton.
According
to the preliminary investigation, Donald
Hoffman, 27, was fatally shot by a member
of the Atlantic County Emergency Response
Team shortly after 4 a.m. at his mother's
rented house in Hammonton. The events leading
to the shooting started about 4:30 p.m.
on Sunday, when Hoffman allegedly confronted
an emergency medical technician and pointed
a handgun at him outside of the Deptford
Township Emergency Services Building on
Cooper Street. Hoffman fled in a white Honda
Civic, and police, who were alerted of the
incident, located Hoffman’s car and
followed him to 200A 13th Street in Hammonton,
a first-floor residence where he was staying
with his mother. Hoffman got out of his
car, armed with the handgun, and entered
the house about 5 p.m. Police secured the
perimeter of the house, and the Hammonton
and Atlantic County SWAT teams were called
to the scene. Hoffman’s mother and
others who were inside the house came outside
soon afterward, and a woman who lived on
the second floor of the building also left
her residence. A police negotiator communicated
on and off with Hoffman throughout the night
to try to get him to come out and surrender
peacefully. In the early morning hours,
canisters of pepper spray were fired into
the house, but Hoffman continued to ignore
commands to leave the building. Hoffman
was shot as members of the Atlantic County
Emergency Response Team entered the house
shortly after 4 a.m. to arrest him. No further
details of the shooting will be released
at this time because of the ongoing investigation.
The
shooting is being investigated by the Attorney
General’s Shooting Response Team.
Under an Attorney General Directive, the
Shooting Response Team, made up of deputy
attorneys general, detectives of the Division
of Criminal Justice and detectives of the
State Police Major Crime Unit, are dispatched
to the scene to handle investigations of
such incidents.
### |
