A man was behaving “erratically” and refused to drop a broken glass bottle when police at the Jersey Shore fatally shot him, the state’s Attorney General’s Office said.
Multiple officers from the Ventnor and Atlantic City police departments fired at the man as he walked along the area of Wellington and West End avenues around 4:15 p.m. on Aug. 6.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s office said police had received a 911 call about a man acting “erratically” in the area. Responding officers found 30-year-old Amir Johnson of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, walking along a marshy area near the roadway as he held a broken glass bottle, the AG’s office said.
Officers tried to offer Johnson help, but he refused repeated requests to drop the bottle as he made it onto the roadway, which had been cleared of traffic, and continued to walk back and forth, the attorney general’s office said.
About 15 minutes into the ordeal he walked toward police with the bottle still in his hand, prompting multiple officers to open fire, the AG’s office said.
Johnson was taken by a waiting ambulance to the AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead around 6 p.m. Investigators are still working to identify him.
The attorney general’s office said Tuesday that an investigation into the shooting is ongoing.
