N.J. attorney general won't investigate fatal shooting of Suwanee man

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By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The New Jersey attorney general will not investigate the fatal police shooting of a Suwanee father of four, but the Essex County prosecutor's case remains open.

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Credit Union of Atlanta DeFarra "Dean" Ivan Gaymon was killed in Newark, N.J.

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Katherine Carter, the prosecutor's spokeswoman, confirmed Thursday that the state AG had announced Wednesday night “they would not take over the investigation” into the shooting of Defarra “Dean” Gaymon, the president and CEO of the Credit Union of Atlanta.

The attorney general determined there was "no indication of a conflict with the Essex County Prosecutor's Office handling the case fairly and impartially," according to the Associated Press.

Carter said the local investigation remains open and evidence will be presented to a grand jury eventually.

But "that will not happen soon," Carter said in an e-mail. "Evidence is still being gathered and analyzed."

The 48-year-old married man was in Newark, N.J., on July 16 for his 30th high school reunion when he was shot by an undercover officer in an urban park.

According to an account by the undercover investigator with the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, the officer was dispatched to Branch Brook Park to follow up on a report of people engaged in sexual activity. That area of the huge park is considered a popular meeting place for illicit sex.

The officer, who has not been named because he works undercover, made an arrest and had taken a suspect to the patrol car, but he had to go back to retrieve handcuffs he dropped.

That was when he allegedly saw Gaymon engaging in a public sex act.

The officer reported that Gaymon appeared to panic and then fought the officer when he tried to arrest him.

Prosecutor Robert D. Laurino told reporters several days later that Gaymon had threatened to kill the officer and lunged at him.

The investigator fired one shot "out of fear for his life,” Laurino said earlier this month.

Gaymon was the fifth person to be shot by a Newark law enforcement officer in a month. He was the ninth police-involved shooting victim since the first of the year; six of those people, including Gaymon, died.

Gaymon's friends and family have been dissatisfied with the accounts from Essex County authorities. They had asked for the state investigation. They said they also planned to ask the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI to review the shooting.

Gaymon’s relatives did not return messages left Thursday, but they have said previously the information released so far is unbelievable.

"It's very hard to listen to the statements," Gaymon's sister, Kelly Gaymon Armstrong, said soon after her brother was killed. "Everything they are saying, as far as I'm concerned, is a lie. The story he said, ‘I'm going to kill you,' that is not his verbiage.

"All I know is they killed my brother,” Armstrong said. “I know who my brother is. I cannot rest on this."