Officer Shoots Armed Man in Toms River: Police

Toms River, NJ -- The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office is investigating a shooting in Toms River late Thursday night by a police officer of a suspect, Toms River police said Friday morning.

Toms River Police Department spokesman Ralph Stocco gave the following narrative of the incident:

"At 11:32 p.m. on July 7th, officers on patrol approached a suspicious vehicle near the corner of Cedar Drive and Haines Drive. Contact was made with a 29-year-old Toms River man. During the interaction the man suddenly exited his vehicle and pulled a gun on the officers. This encounter resulted in the man receiving at least one gunshot wound prior to him fleeing into the Toms River by jumping over a cement bulkhead at the dead end of the street. A search was conducted with the assistance of the NJ State Police Aviation Unit as well as the Ocean County Sheriff’s Department and the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office. The suspect was located an hour later by Tactical Response officers and medical assistance was immediately administered. He was transported to a nearby medical facility for treatment by the Toms River EMS Service."

The man has been identified as Timothy J. Sauersof Hightstown Road, Toms River.

No officers were injured in the incident, Stocco said.

The investigation will be led by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, Stocco said.

The shooting comes in the wake of two fatal shootings by police officers on Wednesday night that have heightened attention and emotions. Alton Sterling was killed Wednesday night in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile was killed during a traffic stop outside St. Paul, Minnesota. Both of those shootings involved black men; the race of the suspect in the Toms River shooting was not released.

The shooting also happened as snipers opened fire on police officers during a protest in Dallas, Texas, over the shootings of Stering and Castile. Five police officers were killed and seven more are hospitalized in the wake of the shootings, officials said.

Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy, speaking on a conference call about national security hosted by Rep. Tom MacArthur, whose congressional district includes Toms River, mentioned the Toms River shooting but did not get into details other than to say authorities were up through the night working on the investigation.

The Dallas shooting, Mastronardy said, "is going to have an impact on all of us."

"We should always be proactive and alert," Mastronardy said, addressing other members of Ocean and Burlington County law enforcement who were on the call. "The world is certainly changing and we're not immune."

MacArthur said he wants to see Congress act on a bill that would make anyone who kills or attempts to kill a law enforcement officer, firefighter, or other first responder an aggravating factor in death penalty determinations.

The bill, HR 814, called the Thin Blue Line Act, is awaiting action by the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.

"We need to do this (pass the bill) to deter this kind of event," MacArthur said, referring to the Dallas shootings, which he called "a clear assassination."

"Our men and women deserve protection," he said. "This kind of tragedy (the Dallas shootings) can happen anywhere."

The area cited by Stocco in the account of the incident -- Haines Road and Cedar Drive -- is commonly known as Brown's Woods, and has been the subject of stepped-up enforcement since May, when Toms River officials vowed to make the area safer in the wake of what officials said were several incidents, including underage drinking in the woods, fights, drug overdoses and a suicide.

That enforcement included a ban on parking on Cedar Drive from dusk until 8 a.m., adding it to other parks where the township bans parking after dark, Police Chief Mitch Little said at the time.

Brown's Woods also is near Washington Street Elementary School, which was the subject of a lockdown in March after students saw a man near the school. A Pine Beach man, who was later arrested on charges of causing alarm, told police he was just passing by the school on his way to the woods.

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