Attorney General Investigates Fatal Police Involved Shooting in Union

Union Township (Union) New Jersey

The Attorney General’s Shooting Response Team is conducting an investigation into the circumstances of a shooting last evening in Union Township in which a state trooper fatally shot a man who was driving a carjacked vehicle.   According to the preliminary investigation, troopers in the New Jersey State Police Interstate Theft North Unit were investigating carjacked/stolen vehicles when they were alerted that a black Jeep Cherokee, which had been carjacked from its owner on April 13 in Bloomfield, was parked at the Mill Run Apartment Complex in Union Township.  The troopers were conducting surveillance of the Jeep when a man who had been identified as a suspect in the carjacking arrived in a pickup truck, parked, and got into the Jeep at about 5:45 p.m.  Police then converged on the Jeep to arrest the suspect, later identified as Daniel Wolfe, 35, the decedent, whose last known address was in Parlin. As troopers approached, Wolfe drove the Jeep in reverse, ramming a parked vehicle.  He then accelerated forward in the direction of a state trooper.  The trooper fired multiple rounds from his service weapon, striking Wolfe in the shoulder and chest.  The Jeep continued southbound onto Walker Avenue, where it struck a parked vehicle and came to rest.  Troopers removed Wolfe from the Jeep and provided him with medical aid.  Wolfe was taken by EMS to University Hospital in Newark, where he was pronounced dead.  Three troopers who were involved in the incident were taken to Overlook Medical Center in Summit, where they were examined and later released.   No additional information is being released pending further investigation by the Attorney General’s Shooting Response Team.  Members of the State Police who were involved in the incident are still being interviewed, and their names are not being released at this time.   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 New Jersey State Police Major Crime Unit, are dispatched to the scene to handle investigations of shootings involving state law enforcement officers, county investigators or members of county task forces.