Hoboken Man Pleads With Cops to Shoot Him in PATH Station

A tragic incident was narrowly avoided in the Hoboken PATH station on Thursday evening, when a Hoboken man created a tense standoff with local authorities and pleaded with police to shoot him.

According to police reports, the incident began when three Hoboken police officers responded to the scene of an alleged shoplifting incident at the CVS on Washington Street to find Thomas Bellotti, 30, in the area.

Hoboken Police Detective Steven Kranz told Patch that the department had previously received an informational memo that Bellotti may be likely to possess a firearm, which officers were aware of prior to confronting him.

Police stated that when officers commanded Bellotti to stop, he fled down the steps into the PATH station. When officer Keith Rotondi pursued Bellotti, he found the 5 foot 11 inch, 180 pound man waiting on the train platform with his hands in his upper chest pocket.

It was then that Bellotti yelled out numerous times for Rotondi to shoot him, Kranz told Patch.

According to police, Bellotti tossed a clear plastic bag of a suspected CDS – which turned out to be synthetic marijuana – onto the train tracks during the standoff.

During this time, while talking to Bellotti, Rotondi was able to holster his weapon and walk over to him, which may have helped to defuse the situation, said Kranz.

“When you have your hands on a gun, it’s a little bit different than if you’re able to show them your hands, and show them that you don’t have a weapon,” said Kranz. “You’re able to talk to them as a person.”

Soon afterwards, Port Authority police and other HPD officers arrived on the scene and “maintained visual contact of [Bellotti] with their firearms unholstered and in the ready position.”

Police managed to convince Bellotti to surrender without incident shortly afterwards, placed him under arrest, and charged him with shoplifting, possession of a CDS and resisting arrest.

Kranz told Patch that police found no weapons on Bellotti.

When asked about possible motives for Bellotti’s apparently suicidal request to be shot, Kranz said he didn’t want to speculate.

“Unfortunately, it’s the danger that [police] face, and it’s part of the reason that we do what we do,” Kranz said.

Kranz commended the restraint and good judgement that Rotondi and the other officers used to escape a potentially tragic situation with no injuries to anyone involved.

“As I wrote the report, I got a little proud reading it,” Kranz said, pointing out that Rotondi was without radio communication while alone on the train platform due to underground interference.

“You can have a cop in a bad situation make a judgement call and every cop ends up getting labeled. Just imagine. You’re alone on a platform, underground. You have a history with this guy. You know him from previous police encounters. You have current information that he may have a gun. Then he reaches into his breast pocket with his hands concealed. If we see that and then hear someone say ‘Shoot me,’ yeah, that’s hard to deal with.”