Prosecutor: Police Officers Could Not Take Down Philip Seidle When He Killed His Wife

Responding police officers were too far away from Phillip Seidle to use lethal force against him when he shot and killed his ex-wife last year, Monmouth County Prosecutor Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni said at a press conference today.

They couldn't take him down when they got closer because he was threatening to kill himself with a gun held to his head, according to a report on app.com.

Officers can't use lethal force against someone threatening suicide, he said.

"You can't just summarily execute somebody because they might have killed somebody earlier on," he said.

Gramiccioni discussed the findings of an internal review that took more than a year to complete since the June 16 shooting during a 90-minute presentation on Thursday.

Police officers in New Jersey are qualified to shoot their guns at up to 75 feet. The first officer who responded was 75 to 90 feet from Seidle, he said.

"It was not prudent for him to take a shot like that under those unknown circumstances with the risk of hitting innocent bystanders," Gramiccioni said.

He said two Asbury Park officers should be disciplined - one because he didn't tell dispatchers he saw Seidle fire the shots. Another officer should have taken command of the situation, Gramiccioni said.

Seidle fired two volleys into his ex-wife, Tamara Wilson-Seidle. The mother of nine children was shot eight times. She died during the first volley, he said.

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