Family responds to Deloatch accusations
The Deloatch family and their spokesman returned to the backyard pathway where Barry Deloatch was shot and killed about two months ago by a New Brunswick Police officer.
But this time the family spoke about their concerns this week with a statement from a lawyer representing one of two officers involved in the incident. The statement claimed that Deloatch allegedly struck the officer with a 2-foot-long wooden stick during the fatal altercation.
Officers Daniel Mazan and Brad Berdel stopped Deloatch, a New Brunswick resident, and two other unidentified men during routine patrol on Sept. 22 and asked them to show their hands, according to the lawyer. Deloatch then darted down an alley way and tried slipping under a fence in the backyard of 103 Throop Ave.
“I cannot believe Daniel Mazan and his attorney waited two months to release an unjustified action,” said Walter Hudson, the Deloatch family’s spokesman. “The report overall is unethical.”
Despite the claim made by Mazan’s attorney Lawrence Bitterman, Hudson said the weapon attained by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office was a 2-by-4 piece of lumber allegedly used to attack Mazan during the time of the incident.
Because Deloatch was 5-feet, 3-inches and 135 pounds, Hudson said the lumber would have required a lot of strength to swing, which would have been difficult if he was pinned under the fence.
The Deloatch family and Hudson gathered yesterday in the alleyway off the corner of Throop Avenue and Handy Street, where part of the fence Deloatch was stuck under was removed. A small memorial sits in front of the tree next to the gap where the fence once stood.
Hudson said he was unsure why Officer Brad Berdel, the shooter according to Bitterman, did not use another method to apprehend him if he was armed. He said Deloatch was pinned under the corner of a metal fence and if needed could have been pepper-sprayed or struck with a baton.
The police allegedly shot 20 feet away in the dark, but Hudson said the autopsy reports would show that he was shot in close range.
The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office could not comment by press time and has not yet released any results of their investigation.
Barry Deloatch’s sister-in-law said she experienced eye and facial trauma when she walked into the metal bar of the fence at the crime scene on Sept. 24 to visit the vigil. She said that the alley way was unlit and dark.
“The aspect that it was so dark — how could he have had any idea what he was shooting at? He could have shot his partner,” said Tommie Deloatch, Barry Deloatch’s younger brother. “He was shot in close range.”
Why Berdel and Mazan stopped Deloatch and the two unidentified men is still under investigation, but Hudson said some assume it is because of Deloatch’s past criminal record.
The 46-year-old Deloatch in the past has pled guilty to drug possession and distribution charges and completed a rehabilitation program, according to nj.com.
Hudson said he thinks the media neglected to mention that Deloatch graduated from a drug court program and was advocating against drugs to community members before his death.
“The New Brunswick Police Department is a criminal enterprise. Officers are engaged in criminal conduct,” Hudson said, citing Sgt. Richard Rowe who has been charged with mishandling 81 internal affairs cases at the New Brunswick Police Department.
The city has also held one community forum in the past two months, Hudson said.
Hudson said Deloatch was pinned at the end of the fence with parts of the metal dug into his midsection, and the bullet pierced his left side and split with no exit wound. One part of the bullet struck his aorta, killing him.
“It’s a story of justice, and it’s totally inaccurate with the discrepancies within itself,” he said. “What happened that night and what Bitterman endorses were wrong.”
