A 911 call about an assault on a Jersey City security guard reveals that police dispatchers were alarmed when they learned the assailant had taken the guard’s gun — which he later used to shoot a young cop dead.
The unidentified woman who made the call at first only tells dispatchers that a man had walked into a Walgreens in Jersey City and assaulted the guard, NJ.com reported Thursday.
But then a second woman can be heard in the background saying, “Oh my gosh, he took the gun!”
That’s when the caller tells dispatchers, “He took the officer’s gun.”
A dispatcher then asks her to repeat what she said.
“He took the officer’s gun. He’s still in the store and he took his gun. Oh, God,” the caller replied, saying she, the guard and another employee had locked themselves in an office in the drugstore.
“Radio, you got that, right?” the dispatcher tells another dispatcher, who responds, “Yes.”
But the information did not save Jersey City Officer Melvin Santiago, 23, who was shot dead by assailant Lawrence Campbell after he responded to the assault call at about 4 a.m. July 13.
Other cops at the scene returned fire and killed Campbell, who was wanted for an earlier murder.
Public Safety Director James Shea said cops still don’t know what Campbell’s motive was.
“I would never in a million years attempt to rationally understand what that irrational actor did,” he told The Jersey Journal. “It was a horrible, cowardly ambush.”
Shea said witnesses told cops that Campbell had been “smoking drugs all day.’’
Cops said the killer boasted to a bystander, “Watch the news later, I’m going to be famous,” before he pulled the trigger.