Children pass by a memorial for Lawrence Campbell, the man who was killed by police after he fatally shot Police Officer Melvin Santiago on July 13, which has been put up on Grant Avenue near Martin Luther King Drive, Monday, July 14, 2014. Reena Rose Sibayan/The Jersey Jourrnal

As Jersey City mourns a police officer, others grieve for an accused cop killer.

On Orient Avenue, just around the block from Lucky #3 Mini-Mart on Martin Luther King Drive, sits a memorial to Lawrence Campbell, the man who fatally shot Officer Melvin Santiago early Sunday morning.

About two dozen candles and an assortment of empty liquor bottles – including two bottles of Petrón tequila – sit on the sidewalk. Above them, two white t-shirts fixed to the red brick wall feature messages to Campbell scrawled with black markers.

"Thug In Peace."

"Live Life My Bro."

"SEE U ON THE OTHER SIDE. LUV - DRAMA."

Campbell shot and killed Santiago early Sunday morning after Santiago responded to the Walgreens store at Communipaw Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard on a report of an armed robbery. Officers on the scene returned fire, killing Campbell.

There's a similar memorial honoring Santiago outside of the Walgreens.

News of the fatal shootings stunned Barbara Jones, of Bayview Avenue. Jones approached Campbell's memorial late Monday morning to add a note to the t-shirts that are filling up with messages of love for the man accused of fatally shooting a police officer in the line duty.

Her message: "RIP, Bro – Jones fam."

"He was a good man," Jones said. "He looked out for everybody on the block."

Jones said she couldn't reconcile the Campbell she knew with the Campbell who city officials say lay in wait for police to arrive at the Walgreens yesterday before opening fire on them.

"I don't know nothing of that," she said. "I don't see him like that."

A woman saying she is Campbell's mother also paid a visit to the memorial this morning. Identifying herself only as Mrs. Campbell, she said she doesn't believe her son is responsible for Santiago's death.

"He didn't do it," she said. "That's not Lawrence."

Gesturing to the memorial, she added, "This is Lawrence right here."

The sidewalk shrine is being blasted by top Jersey City officials and the heads of the city's two police unions, Officer Carmine Disbrow and Sgt. Robert Kearns. In a statement released by the unions' PR firm, Disbrow and Kearns note that witnesses say Campbell wanted to gain notoriety from the shooting.

"What kind of society do we live in where memorializing a violent murderer is acceptable?" the statement reads. "Our hope in the coming days is that all attention will be directed towards the bravery of our lost brother, Patrolman Melvin Santiago."

Public Safety Director James Shea is equally aghast.

"It is sad and disgusting to put up a memorial for a cowardly killer who ambushes a police officer and terrorizes a neighborhood," Shea said in a statement issued by the city spokeswoman, "but in no way do the few people who put a memorial up for a killer represent the larger Jersey City community that admires the work of the Jersey City Police Department."

Campbell's mother thinks the Orient Avenue memorial is just the beginning.

"You're going to see a whole lot of this," she said.