Metro

Man who executed rookie cop: ‘I’m going to be famous’

A rookie Jersey City cop was ambushed and executed by a murder suspect who moments earlier boasted, “Watch the TV news later — I’m going to be famous,” authorities said Sunday.

Santiago was killed outside this pharmacy in Jersey City.G.N. Miller

Officer Melvin Santiago, 23, was fatally shot in the head as he and other cops responded to a report of an armed robbery at a 24-hour Walgreens drugstore shortly after 4 a.m.

Santiago, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, was just getting out of the passenger seat of his patrol car when fugitive Lawrence Campbell came up and opened fire twice through the open door with a semiautomatic 9mm pistol, officials said.

Campbell — who had stolen the gun from a Walgreens security guard — then unleashed a barrage of bullets, leaving a string of 13 holes across the patrol car’s windshield.

Lawrence Campbell

Santiago’s partner, Ismael Martinez, dodged the fusillade and with the other cops returned fire, killing Campbell, 27. None of the other cops was hit.

Just before his predawn ambush, Campbell had walked into the drugstore near McGinley Square and asked a security guard for directions to the greeting-card aisle, officials said.

He then left, only to return minutes later and stab the guard in the arm with a knife and grab his gun, authorities said.

He never tried to rob the store.

Daniel WilsonG.N. Miller

Instead, surveillance video shows Campbell “walking outside and speaking to a witness, at which time he apologized for his conduct in Walgreens,” authorities said in a statement.

The killer told the bystander, “Watch the TV news later — I’m going to be famous,” said Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.

At a news conference Sunday, Fulop said Santiago’s mom, Cathy McBride, had identified her son’s body at the hospital.

Grief-stricken, the mother “just kept repeating [his] badge number and saying that it’s not possible,” Fulop recounted.

Officer Melvin SantiagoAP

Dozens of uniformed cops stood outside the Jersey City Medical Center and saluted as Santiago’s flag-draped body was carried into an ambulance.

“Today was a horrible day for Jersey City,” Fulop said.

McBride lashed out at his son’s killer, calling the thug a “piece of s- -t” and a “son of a bitch.”

“This guy deserves nothing . . . His name should be forgotten,” McBride said, crying outside her family’s Jersey City home.

“Don’t give him any notoriety. He killed my son. My son was 23 and a good kid and didn’t deserve to get a bullet in his head doing his job, all because someone wanted to be famous.”

Campbell had been on the lam since a slaying last week involving two other accomplices.

Fulop identified one of the other fugitives as Daniel Wilson, for whom he said cops have been “aggressively searching.”

Santiago, a lifelong Jersey City resident, joined the police force last year and graduated from the academy in December.

Friends and relatives said he had long dreamed of being a cop like his uncle, a retired Jersey City detective.

G.N. Miller
“He wanted to work the West District, which is known around here as the Wild, Wild West,” said next-door neighbor and longtime pal Gary Nahrwold, 24.

“It fits his character. He wanted the hardest district.”

Stepfather Alex McBride said Santiago scored a near-perfect 98 on his police entrance exam.

“He was like an angel to me — always had a smile, never any trouble, ever,” he said. “How do I deal with him gone?”

Santiago’s half-brother, also named Alex McBride, 13, was heard wailing in the home.

The wounded Walgreens security guard, Pierre Monsanto, 58, was released after hospital treatment, neighbors said.

His niece Ashley Etienne, 17, told The Jersey Journal that Monsanto, who works for a private firm, was “badly beaten.”

A Walgreens spokeswoman said the chain was “deeply regretful” over the violence. The Jersey City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association said, “Words cannot adequately express our feelings about this senseless tragedy.”

— Additional reporting by Frank Rosario