| SAYREVILLE – The Attorney General’s Shooting Response Team is conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding a shooting yesterday in Sayreville in which a member of a county narcotics task force fired at a suspect as he rammed a police vehicle and struck an officer while trying to flee from police.
According to the preliminary investigation, at approximately 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, members of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office Narcotics Task Force were conducting a drug operation involving a planned undercover purchase of heroin outside the Rite Aid Pharmacy at 3553 Washington Road in Sayreville. The target of the operation was Isaiah D. Roberts, 38, of Parlin, N.J. As Roberts drove into the back lot of the pharmacy in his black 2006 Chrysler 300, he observed undercover officers approaching and attempted to turn his car. In his effort to flee, he allegedly struck an unmarked police vehicle and a detective from the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. At that point, an officer from the Perth Amboy Police Department assigned to the Prosecutor’s Office fired a rifle at Roberts. Roberts was not struck by the gunfire and continued to flee the lot, striking three additional marked and unmarked police vehicles. Roberts’ vehicle was stopped after a collision with a police vehicle, and he was placed under arrest without further incident. Upon his arrest, Roberts was found to have 10 “bricks” (or bundles of approximately 50 single-dose glassine folds of heroin) on his person. The officer who was struck by Roberts’ car was treated for minor injuries at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick and released.
Roberts was charged by the Attorney General’s Shooting Response Team with second-degree attempted murder, second-degree aggravated assault, second-degree eluding police, and third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose (his vehicle). Narcotics charges are being filed by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. Roberts was processed at Sayreville Police Headquarters and was lodged in the Middlesex County Jail with bail set at $500,000. The charges are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The incident remains under investigation by the Attorney General’s Shooting Response Team. No further information is being released at this time. Under an Attorney General Directive, the Shooting Response Team, made up of deputy attorneys general, detectives of the Division of Criminal Justice, and detectives of the State Police Major Crime Unit, are dispatched to the scene to handle investigations of shootings involving state troopers or officers employed by county prosecutors as detectives/investigators or members of county task forces.
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