This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Police in northern New Jersey shot a man dead in a public library on Friday, after an apparent altercation with officers.

At a late-night press conference, Lyndhurst police chief James O’Connor identified the man as Kevin Allen. O’Connor said Allen was wanted for violating probation terms of a work-release program, and that an officer recognized him as he entered the Lyndhurst public library at about 1.30pm.

A few minutes later, police said the officer confronted Allen, 36, on the third floor of the building, where Allen is said to have resisted arrest by struggling with the police officer, O’Connor said. Police said Allen then pulled a knife when a second officer arrived and “charged” at the pair.

“He brandished the knife,” O’Connor told reporters, after the officers had “just prior” tried to use pepper spray and their batons. “Mr Allen still went after them aggressively and left them no choice but to deploy deadly force.”

“There was nothing else they could have done,” he said.

People at the library fled, according to the officers, and administrators later closed the building as more police arrived to investigate. Allen was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead at about 3.30pm. The officers involved sustained no physical injuries but also went to the hospital to be treated for shock, police said.

O’Connor would not comment on whether gunfire from the officers could have endangered bystanders, saying only: “We’ll review what occurred here today, and review what steps we can take in the future to hopefully prevent that from occurring again.”

Kevin Allen Photograph: Bergen County prosecutor

Police have said they are interviewing a number of witnesses, including a child. They did not disclose any names or ages.

The library, which is directly adjacent to the Lyndhurst police station, is normally open on Saturdays. A day after the shooting, a sign hanging in its window said it would be closed for the weekend.

At the police station, Sergeant Kevin Breslin told the Guardian he did not know if video of the shooting existed, or how many officers had been involved in the shooting or aftermath, or how many law enforcement agencies had been involved in the incident on Friday.

Allen had a record of arrests that spanned more than a decade, and court records showed charges for offenses including arrears, drug distribution and criminal sexual conduct. He was wanted on arrest warrants for contempt of court and failing to appear for his work-release program. He sometimes went by the alias Kevin Hall, Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli said.

Former neighbors expressed surprise at his death.



“I don’t know anyone that would say anything bad about him,” William McMann told ABC7. “It’s just really shocking to hear what happened. I just can’t put it together.”



Others said they were rattled by the violence. A local mother, Daisy Pabon, told CBS2 she would not take her child back to the library.

“I’m very scared of going there,” she said. “I don’t know what can happen next time.”

At the library on Saturday, Karen Kennedy told the Guardian: “I miss the library today. This is a nice, family run community.”

Though she had stumbled upon the chaos yesterday afternoon, she said “nothing like this ever happens around here”.

John Shutt, who has lived across the street from where the library is now for 40 years, watched the afternoon’s drama unfold from his stoop. The police taped off the block from around 1.30pm until 7.30pm and were investigating until around 10pm, he said.

“I came out to move my car at 1.30pm, and I didn’t know we had so many cops,” he said. “There were like 20 cops running into there.”

The sheriff’s department and state police also showed up, Shutt said, until there were about 40 officers on the scene.

A middle aged woman, who did not want to give her name, said she felt sympathy for the officers involved.

“I heard they had to go to the hospital for stress,” she said. “My heart goes out to them.”

Asked about recent police shootings around the country, she said: “I am very pro-cop.” She added that she often went to the Holy Cross cemetery in nearby North Arlington, New Jersey, where “they’d got a special action for police, soldiers, 9/11 victims, all the people who keep us safe”.

“I got to pray for them,” she said.

An occupant at Allen’s listed address told ABC7, meanwhile, that police had come to the house a few days earlier in search of Allen, who had left no forwarding address.



“I knew it wasn’t anything good. But it shocked me it was the same guy they were looking for in the library who ended up getting killed,” the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity.