TRENTON — A state investigation has found a New Jersey trooper was justified in shooting an armed 76-year-old man inside his home after dispatchers sent police there by mistake last summer.
Following a six-month inquiry by the state’s shooting response team, which reviews use of force by police officers, Division of Criminal Justice Director Elie Honig opted not to send the case to a grand jury, authorities said Friday.
A report detailing the investigation described a chain reaction of dispatch errors that sent a pair of state troopers, guns drawn, onto the property of Gerald Sykes, who at the time was fast asleep with his wife.
Sykes, believing the police were home invaders, came out of his bedroom brandishing a shotgun and, after a brief confrontation, was shot three times by one of the troopers.
When he awoke in the hospital, family members later told NJ Advance Media, he asked, “Did they get the bad guys that shot me?”
The state Attorney General’s Office declined to identify the troopers involved. An attorney for the trooper who shot Sykes did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Gerald Sykes. Submitted photo
The July incident started when the troopers were dispatched to Sykes’ single-family home on Centerton Road in Upper Deerfield, where they were told someone had made a 911 call and hung up.
But the state investigation later found there had been no hang-up. According to the report, a 911 caller reached a dispatch center in Cumberland County, and the dispatcher attempted to transfer the call to State Police. That dispatcher, however, “hit a wrong button” and sent the call to a 911 center in Vineland.
“The county dispatcher quickly canceled the transfer, but the dispatch terminal in Vineland registered a 911 call lasting just two seconds,” the report said.
A Vineland dispatcher thought the two-second call was a hang-up, authorities said.
The Vineland facility is not equipped to handle 911 calls from cell phones, which are usually received by the county 911 center, authorities said, and because the Sykes family lives near a cell phone tower, the dispatcher wrongly determined they had placed the call, the report found.
The dispatcher contacted the State Police station in Bridgeton to report a 911 hang-up at the Sykes home, the repot said.
Meanwhile, Sykes and his wife told investigators they awoke, groggy, to a barking dog and the sound of footsteps on their deck.
The troopers arrived in uniform driving marked cars, but did not activate their lights or sirens, according to the report. The home was set back from the road and lit only by the headlights of the troop cars.
One trooper rang the doorbell of the home but got no response, the report said, so both troopers walked to the back of the house, where they could see the couple’s bedroom through a sliding glass door.
The troopers saw Skyes’ wife turn on a bedside light and get out of bed, and one of the troopers “shouting through the glass, identified himself as a state trooper and said he was there to investigate a 911 hang-up,” the report said.
As they tried to talk to the woman through the glass, the troopers claimed they saw Sykes walk out of the bedroom into a hallway, and the two officers then moved to another sliding glass door looking into the living room.
The troopers claimed “the next time they saw Mr. Sykes, he was holding a long gun up to his shoulder” as well as a revolver, which was pressed against the side of the long gun.
The man’s wife, however, told investigators that Sykes had the gun pointed downward.
The two troopers drew their guns and began screaming “State Police” and “drop the gun,” according to the report.
Police said Sykes turned and pointed the long gun and revolver at one of the troopers, who fired at him four times.
Sykes went down and the troopers retreated off the deck, calling for backup, the report said.
When the second trooper turned to check to see what Sykes was doing, police said, the man fired his shotgun through the glass door, grazing the trooper’s elbow.
Sykes’ wife tried unsuccessfully to call 911 and then called the couple’s daughter, while Sykes himself separately called 911, telling the operator he had been shot by two “prowlers” and had returned fire, according to audio later obtained by NJ Advance Media.
The operator had Sykes’ wife place the shotgun on the deck and told Sykes to walk out onto the front lawn. Other troopers who arrived to provide backup cuffed the elderly man, “but un-cuffed him once EMS arrived and started treating his wounds.”
Sykes was airlifted to Cooper University Hospital in Camden and is still recovering from his wounds. He was never charged over the incident, but the state investigation found the trooper was justified in shooting him.
“While there is a dispute about whether Mr. Sykes pointed the shotgun at the troopers before (one of them) fired, there is no dispute that Mr. Sykes was armed, did not comply with troopers’ commands, and approached to within a few feet of the troopers with his shotgun and revolver,” the report said.
Skyes’ attorney, Rich Kaser, said Friday he was not surprised by the ruling. Kaser recently filed a preliminary notice of intent to sue local, county and state officials over the incident.
When asked whether the investigation would lead to any changes in how 911 calls are handled, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.
S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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