Community Corner
South Orange's Keith Neumann Remembered
Officer was accidentally killed during drug raid.
Representatives from South Orange’s Police Department, Fire Department, and from the South Orange Rescue Squad attended a graveside service at Gate of Heaven cemetery in East Hanover marking the 20th anniversary of the death of Keith Neumann. Neumann, then a 24-year-old Essex County police officer, was accidentally shot and killed during a drug raid on August 3, 1989, six weeks after the South Orange native was married. Neumann’s father was a South Orange firefighter.
An active member of the South Orange Rescue Squad, the Squad’s life member plaque is named in Neumann’s honor. Two senior members of the Squad, Mary Connor and Dick Ash, who knew Neumann, attended the service. A member of the graduating class of 1982, Neumann was posthumously inducted into the CHS hall of fame.
After his death, the family established the Neumann foundation, which now donates specialty bicycles to police departments throughout New Jersey. In May of this year, an anonymous donation allowed the foundation to distribute 101 of the bicycles, which can cost $1,000, to 89 communities around the state. The number 101 was chosen because that was Neumann’s badge number.
