A grand jury has decided not to charge the Bridgeton police officers who fatally shot Jerame Reid, the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office has announced.
The decision marks the end of a an investigation into the death of Reid, who was fatally shot by Bridgeton police after a traffic stop.
In a press release on Thursday morning, the CCPO released findings of a months-long investigation into the fatal shooting.
Officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley of the Bridgeton Police Department were on patrol just after 9:20 p.m. on Dec. 30 when they pulled over a blue Jaguar for failing to stop at a stop sign.
Days was the first officer out of the cruiser, and approached the Jaguar on the passenger side. The CCPO report says that when Days asked the driver to get his license, the driver opened the glove compartment, revealing a handgun. By this point, Worley had approached the Jaguar from the driver’s side, and both officers pointed their service weapons at the occupants of the car.
The CCPO notes that Days had charged Reid in August of 2014 with resisting arrest, and that both officers were aware that Reid had previously been convicted of shooting at police officers. Worley and Days both stated that they saw Reid’s hand moving for the glove compartment, at which point Days reached into the car and took the weapon, a Browning Pro-40 .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun. According to the CCPO, a New Jersey State Police lab later found Reid’s DNA on the gun.
The officers then told the two men to show their hands and instructed them not to move police dash cam video from the scene shows the driver of the car facing away from the interior of the vehicle, holding his hands out of the window.
“Contrary to [Days’] repeated commands not to move, to show his hands and not to get out of the vehicle, the passenger positioned his body and apparently attempted to force his way out of the passenger door,” says the prosecutor’s office announcement. “[Reid] announced that he was getting out of the vehicle. [Days] told him not to move, employed expletives and gave commands in a strong tone. Nevertheless, the passenger told [Days] he was getting out and onto the ground.”
At that point, the prosecutor’s office says, Reid forced his way out of the car. Days fired seven shots. Worley fired a single shot through the car windshield, in the direction of Reid’s back, but missed. Only two seconds passed between Reid getting out of the car and the firing of the last shot.
Reid was pronounced dead shortly later at Inspira Medical Center in Vineland. An autopsy showed he was struck once in one of his lungs, and had a penetrating wound where a bullet had gone through his arm, striking a lung and his heart.
Reid’s shooting gained national attention in an era of racial relations and police shootings with many citing Reid’s fatal shooting as excessive. In the days after his death, Reid’s wife said her “biggest fear” had come true.
