CAMDEN, N.J. — The police raided an apartment early Sunday morning and arrested a 19-year-old man accused of murdering a police officer in Lakewood on Friday, ending an exhaustive manhunt, officials said.
Jahmell W. Crockam was arrested Sunday morning and accused of murdering Christopher Matlosz, a police officer in Lakewood, N.J., on Friday.
Multiple tips led officers to arrest Jahmell W. Crockam in the Crestbury Apartments, a development of shabby, two-story brick homes 60 miles from Lakewood, the township where Officer Christopher Matlosz was killed by three point-blank shots to the head.
“This is not a time of celebration, but it is of some small solace to his family and his brother officers to have this person in custody,” Lakewood Police Chief Robert Lawson said.
His bail was set at $5 million cash bond. He is scheduled to appear in Ocean County Superior Court on Tuesday.
A 15-member task force made up of the State Police and United States marshals burst into the apartment at 6:30 a.m. and took Mr. Crockam into custody in a second-floor bedroom, officials said. Mr. Crockam was awake, they said, and did not put up a fight. He was unarmed, said Capt. Thomas Hayes, commander of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office major crimes unit.
Investigators are still trying to learn how Mr. Crockam traveled to Camden, evading more than 100 police officers who scoured Lakewood, Captain Hayes said. “We’re trying to establish a timeline of what he did and where he went after the murder,” he said.
About 4 p.m. on Friday, Officer Matlosz, 27, pulled his police car alongside Mr. Crockam to talk to him on a pleasant, snowy street in Lakewood, officials said. Mr. Crockam stepped back, drew a handgun and shot Officer Matlosz once in the head before stepping forward to shoot two more times, the Ocean County prosecutor, Marlene Lynch Ford, said.
Officer Matlosz did not have time to draw his weapon or get out of his car, she said. He was pronounced dead at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune less than an hour later. His fiancée was by his side.
“It was a senseless killing,” Ms. Ford said, adding that investigators were trying to determine if Mr. Crockam was a member of a gang.
On Sunday at the site of the shooting on August Drive, mourners laid bouquets of flowers and candles in a snowbank along with a sign on which Officer Matlosz’s friends wrote, “R.I.P. #317,” “Chris, the station won’t be the same without your smile,” and “Thanks for protecting our community.”
The state Policemen’s Benevolent Association offered around $150,000 in cash for information leading to the suspect’s arrest. Ms. Ford said there would be claims made for that money, and she praised those who had contacted law enforcement.
“The real heroes are the citizens who stepped forward, who gave us information that we could use,” she said.
The police had been hunting for Mr. Crockam since Dec. 29, when the Ocean County prosecutor’s office issued a warrant for his arrest after an illegal rifle and hollow-point bullets turned up in a search of a private residence were linked to him, Ms. Ford said.
She said she did not know if Mr. Crockam knew about the warrant or if, in the moments before the shooting, Officer Matlosz learned about it also.
Residents in a troubled town-house development just two blocks from the shooting, which SWAT teams swept through on Friday evening, said they had, at different times, seen both men. Emilio Cuccio, 59, a machinist, said that in the past few years Officer Matlosz went to the development several times on his overnight shift to quell disturbances.
“He was a gentleman,” Mr. Cuccio said. “He was a very nice guy.”
A 41-year-old resident said he saw Mr. Crockam hanging around the town houses a few times a week, even though he did not live there. The man said Mr. Crockam attended Lakewood High School and would often hang around outside with a group of friends.
Neighbors in the Crestbury Apartments in Camden said the apartment where Mr. Crockam was arrested had been occupied for about the past month by two young women.
At a late-morning news conference, Mayor Menashe P. Miller of Lakewood called Mr. Crockam’s arrest “bittersweet.”
“We are thrilled to have removed this cold-blooded murderer off the street,” he said. “But at the same time, there’s a grieving fiancée and a mother has to bury her son.”
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