A New Jersey man went berserk after arguing with his mom yesterday – running through his neighborhood, firing a shotgun and critically wounding two cops before he was shot to death in a furious gun battle, police said.
The gunman, Edward Abrams, 31, grazed two bystanders before his gunfight with police.
Abrams, who was unemployed and lived with his mother, collapsed and died about 400 yards from his home in South River, 40 miles south of New York City.
The wounded officers, one of whom is the town’s police chief, were listed in critical but stable condition after surgery and were expected to recover.
Windows were shot out at several homes during the wild incident, which began about 10:30 a.m. in the town of 14,000.
Neighbor Monika Dziedzic, 51, said the gunfire went on for two or three minutes.
“There were a lot of shots. Really a lot. More than you can count on two hands. One after the other. Sometimes rapidly, then a moment of quiet, and then it started again,” she said.
Middlesex County Prosecutor Glenn Berman said Edwards went into a rage after arguing with his mother.
Then police got a 911 call about a man with a gun.
By the time Chief Wesley Bomba and Lt. John Bouthillette responded, Abrams had fired several times.
One pellet grazed the back of a motorist and another went through a window and nicked the neck of a neighbor. Both were treated at nearby Robert Wood Johnson Hospital and released.
Berman said Bomba, 56, was hit in the right groin and upper left shoulder, but still fired three shots from his handgun.
Bouthillette, 39, was struck on his right side, sustaining injuries to his kidney, liver and diaphragm.
Two cops in a car behind them, Eric Gartner and John McKenna, got out and chased Abrams into the parking lot of a nearby park. Gartner fired one shot and Abrams collapsed, Berman said.
Bomba, who had been on the force since December 1967, became chief several months ago. Bouthillette joined the department in 1986.
Gov. Christie Whitman spoke to the cops’ families at the hospital.
“It will take them awhile, but they will be all right.”