Two dramatically different perspectives — from the wife of the New Jersey State Police trooper and one of the teens inside the fleeing vehicle at which he fired three shots July 26 — emerged from 911 recordings provided Monday to the New Jersey Herald.

By ROB JENNINGS

rjennings@njherald.com

SPARTA — Two dramatically different perspectives — from the wife of the New Jersey State Police trooper and one of the teens inside the fleeing vehicle at which he fired three shots July 26 — emerged from 911 recordings provided Monday to the New Jersey Herald.

One of the teens said they were trying to visit a friend, accidentally went to the trooper’s house and were frightened after he pursued them outside with what they thought might be a laser, but turned out to be a handgun.

He said their vehicle swerved to avoid Trooper Kissinger Barreau as he stood in the middle of his street, gun drawn, at about 2 in the morning.

“We were all scared,” the teen, identifying himself as Jonathan Baker, said soon after their vehicle – its right front tire flattened by a bullet – came to a halt.

The trooper’s wife, unidentified on the recordings, recounted awakening her husband after hearing “banging on our front and back door.”

She told the dispatcher he was nearly struck by their vehicle and that it was deliberate, at one point stating the driver fled “after trying to hit my husband with his car.”

“The car almost hit him. Now he’s in his car pursuing them,” the wife said.

She did not say whether she witnessed the encounter and was unclear on how many persons were involved.

The separate 911 calls from the teen and trooper’s wife were received in Hardyston and provided to the New Jersey Herald in response to an Open Public Records Act request.

The recordings offer additional insight into what transpired on Sunday, July 26, in the vicinity of Barreau’s home on Whispering Woods Lane.

At one point, the teen caller identified himself as the driver.

None of the teens were injured and no charges have been filed, though the teens —two 18-year-olds and a 19-year-old — were taken into custody for several hours.

The office of New Jersey Acting Attorney General John Jay Hoffman, which has jurisdiction over trooper-involved shootings, is investigating and has declined to confirm names of the trooper or the teens.

Hoffman’s office issued a statement last Wednesday that the “preliminary investigation indicates that the young men were in the area to attend a party and mistakenly believed the trooper’s home was the house of a friend.”

Asked for an update Monday, Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, said the trooper remains on active duty.

Though pursuing the teens with his personal handgun, Barreau told investigators that he identified himself as a trooper.

The teen told the dispatcher that he heard “he’s a state trooper or something.”

Both the trooper’s wife and the teen sounded calm in the recordings.

“Nine-one-one, where’s your emergency,” the unidentified dispatcher said to Barreau’s wife.

“Hi, I’m at home in (inaudible),” she responded.

“Somebody was just banging on our front and back door. And my husband’s a state trooper, just went outside with his gun ... And I think they just drove off,” she said.

Baker opened his call to 911 by saying, “Um, I just had an emergency.”

“I think I’m in Sparta. I’m by, Butternut Trail, I think it is,” he said.

The dispatcher responded, “OK, what’s going on there?”

“My friend and I went to go to see my other friend but he gave me the wrong house number. So, he led me up to the wrong house. And, we rang the doorbell. And, apparently, I heard this, that he’s a state trooper or something,” the teen said.

“He came out with, like, something, like a laser, like a gun, or something. And, we, ‘cause I was really scared. We were all scared. He was shouting like at us from the front door. So, we ran back to my car. We were just trying to drive away, because it was obvious it was the wrong house,” the teen said.

“And, we drove down the street, and it was a cul de sac. We had to turn around. And he was in the middle of the street, and, I swerved, because I didn’t want to hit him. And, he shot my car and, it’s like, the front right tire is blown out. It’s flat,” he said.

Barreau’s wife told the dispatcher that, following the shooting, he pursued them in his personal vehicle.

“Somebody was just banging on our front and back door. My husband is a state trooper. I woke him up. He went and got his gun. He went outside. He fired three shots. The car almost hit him. Now he’s in his car pursuing them,” said the trooper’s wife.

“I can give you his license plate number,” she said of her husband’s vehicle, a white Ford Explorer.

“He just left our street. I just saw him back down our street,” the wife said, before returning to what she heard earlier from outside.

At one point, after she referred to only one teen— not Baker — giving his name to her husband at the door before driving away, the dispatcher sought to clarify the number of persons that were involved.

“OK, so there was one person,” he asked, to which she responded, “I don’t know.”

The dispatcher followed up, “You heard banging on the back and front door?”

“Yes, yes, yes. Banging on the back and front door. I don’t know if it was one person, two persons,” she said.

Baker, near the end of his call, described himself as in a “bad situation.”

“I’m stranded out here,” he said, soon before his call was transferred to Sparta.

The trooper’s wife, before her husband returned, also conveyed a sense of isolation.

“I’m at home now, alone, with three kids,” she said.



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