Local Activist Critical of Prosecutor's Announcement to Seek Grand Jury in Deloatch Case

An activist around New Brunswick Tuesday critiqued the plan of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office to seek a grand jury hearing of the shooting death of city man Barry Deloatch.

Tormel Pittman said he had a number of concerns, specifically about the integrity of jurors picked from the area and how the case would be presented to those jurors.

On Monday, Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan met with the Deloatch family to discuss the planned proceedings for the case.

Pittman said he was among those at the meeting with Kaplan.

The Home News Tribune reported on Tuesday that Kaplan announced that an empaneling of a grand jury will occur next month.

In that report, Jim O'Neill, spokesman for the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, is reported as saying the office seeks a new grand jury that is free of bias and "unaffected by the intense news coverage generated by the shooting."

Barry Deloatch, 46, of New Brunswick, was shot and killed just after midnight on Sept. 22, following a a pursuit by two New Brunswick police officers, Daniel Mazan and Brad Berdel.

Deloatch was not carrying a firearm at the time, but according to Berdel's attorney, was on the ground and beating Mazan with a wooden stick, causing Berdel to open fire, striking Deloatch in the side once, severing a major artery and killing him.

Since that time, a flurry of media coverage at both the local and state level has documented the case, and city residents have protested more than a dozen times over the fatal shooting, as well as other police-involved shootings over the past 20 years.

Pittman has served as head of the majority of those protests, and is also chairman of the Direct Action Coalition, a group of citizens who have banded together to specifically address violence in the city.

Pittman said the group was told that the case will focus mainly on the involvement of Berdel. Mazan reportedly subdued Deloatch, but did not fire the shot.

Pittman said that he believes the prosecution believes that Mazan is not at fault in the case, nor is Berdel, but someone has to take the blame.

"(That's) kind of telling me that deep down the prosecution feels...that Brad Berdel did nothing wrong, but is kind of throwing the city a bone," he said.