A man attacked a Jersey City (N.J.) police officer inside his marked vehicle this morning and was shot twice by police a block from a memorial for the man who shot and killed a Jersey City police officer Sunday, authorities said.
Two police officers from the Emergency Services Unit were on patrol on Martin Luther King Drive near Kearney Avenue at 2:30 a.m. when they saw a man holding what is being described as a 6-foot, 2-by-2, fence post with a sharpened edge, Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Gene Rubino said.
When the ESU officers ordered the man to drop the post he attacked the police vehicle with the sharpened fence post and threw it through the passenger side window, striking one of the officers in the head, Rubino told the Jersey Journal. The officer, who has not been identified, suffered a head injury.
Rubino said the man, who also has not been identified, then jumped onto the vehicle's running board, reached into the vehicle and wrestled with the officers for control of a police rifle in an attempt to disarm the officer and pull the firearm out of the window.
In the struggle over the firearm, the officer fired a shot into the passenger side door, striking the man, who then fell off the running board, Rubino said.
The officers jumped out of the vehicle and ordered the man to the ground, but he refused, Rubino said, adding that the man reached into his waistband.
The man ignored the officers' commands to show his hands and one of the officers shot him.
The man is now in stable condition at the Barnabas Health-Jersey City Medical Center after undergoing surgery this morning, JCMC spokesman Mark Rabson said. The two Jersey City Police Officers are also being treated, Rubino said.
