# [ODMP] Jersey City Police Department, New Jersey ~ December 25, 2005



## Guest (Dec 26, 2005)

A Police Officer with the Jersey City Police Department was killed in the line of duty on December 25, 2005

*http://www.odmp.org/officer.php?oid=18090*


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

The Officer Down Memorial Page Remembers . . .






















Police Officer Shawn Carson 
*Jersey City Police Department
New Jersey*
End of Watch: Sunday, December 25, 2005

Biographical Info
*Age:* 40
*Tour of Duty:* 16 years
*Badge Number:* Not available

Incident Details
*Cause of Death:* Automobile accident
*Date of Incident:* Sunday, December 25, 2005
*Weapon Used*: Not available
*Suspect Info:* Not available

Officer Carson and Officer Robert Nguygen were killed when their patrol truck drove off of the Hackensack River Bridge and plunged 45-feet into the Hackensack River during a period of heavy fog at 8:20 pm.

The officers had driven across the drawbridge to place flares on the Newark side to warn drivers about a problem with the bridge's operations. As they set the flares the bridge's operator opened the span to allow a tugboat to pass underneath. The bridge's safety bar and warning lights, which had not been functional for two days, failed to activate when the span opened.

As the officers returned to the Jersey City side of the bridge their vehicle drove off of the open portion of the span and fell to the river below, killing both officers. Officer Carson was pulled from the water two hours after the incident and taken to University Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Officer Carson had served with the Jersey City Police Department for 16 years.

Related Line of Duty Deaths Police Officer Robert Nguygen
Jersey City Police Department, NJ
EOW: Sunday, December 25, 2005
Cause of Death: Automobile accident

Agency Contact Information
Jersey City Police Department
8 Erie Street
Jersey City, NJ 07302

Phone: (201) 547-5477

* _Please contact the agency for funeral information_

*»* View this officer's Reflections*»* Leave a Reflection*»* List all officers from this agency*»* Update this memorial*»* Printer friendly view


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

Two Officers From The Same Department

The Officer Down Memorial Page Remembers . . .























Police Officer Robert Nguygen 
*Jersey City Police Department*
*New Jersey*
End of Watch: Sunday, December 25, 2005

Biographical Info
*Age:* 30
*Tour of Duty:* 6 years
*Badge Number:* Not available

Incident Details
*Cause of Death:* Automobile accident
*Date of Incident:* Sunday, December 25, 2005
*Weapon Used*: Not available
*Suspect Info:* Not available

Officer Nguygen and Officer Shawn Carson were killed when their patrol truck drove off of the Hackensack River Bridge and plunged 45-feet into the Hackensack River during a period of heavy fog at 8:20 pm.

The officers had driven across the drawbridge to place flares on the Newark side to warn drivers about a problem with the bridge's operations. As they set the flares the bridge's operator opened the span to allow a tugboat to pass underneath. The bridge's safety bar and warning lights, which had not been functional for two days, failed to activate when the span opened.

As the officers returned to the Jersey City side of the bridge their vehicle drove off of the open portion of the span and fell to the river below, killing both officers. Officer Carson was pulled from the water two hours after the incident and taken to University Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Officer Nguygen had served with the Jersey City Police Department for 6 years.

Related Line of Duty Deaths Police Officer Shawn Carson
Jersey City Police Department, NJ
EOW: Sunday, December 25, 2005
Cause of Death: Automobile accident

Agency Contact Information
Jersey City Police Department
8 Erie Street
Jersey City, NJ 07302

Phone: (201) 547-5477

* _Please contact the agency for funeral information_

*»* View this officer's Reflections*»* Leave a Reflection*»* List all officers from this agency*»* Update this memorial*»* Printer friendly view


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*Jersey City Emergency Services Unit Plunges Into N.J. River

One Officer Dies at Hospital, Second Still Missing and Presumed Dead

*

*LISA COLAGROSSI*
_Courtesy WABC New York, Reprinted with Permission_

The search resumed this morning for one of two Jersey City police officers presumed dead after his emergency service vehicle plunged off a drawbridge into the icy Hackensack River.

The accident happened on the Lincoln Highway Bridge linking Jersey City to Kearny. The Jersey City Emergency Services Unit officers drove off the Lincoln Highway River Bridge, also known as the Routes 1 & 9 truck route, at about 8:15 p.m. last night. His partner, a veteran Jersey City police officer, had already been pulled from the frigid water -- but died at University Hospital in Newark.

Eyewitness News reporter Lisa Colagrossi is live at University Hospital with the latest.

New Jersey police this morning are calling this a tragic accident.

Rescue crews searched the Hackensack River until 2:20 this morning, then they had to call it off because of the heavy fog. They will resume their search at 10:15 this morning.

One officer, 30-year-old Robert Nguygen, a six year veteran, is still missing early today. He is presumed dead. Rescue workers resumed searching for him this morning after the dense fog forced them to call off their efforts early today. They said they will search for him until his body was found.

The other officer, 40-year-old Officer Shawn Carson was found in the water and placed onto an NYPD rescue boat. He was taken to University Hospital in Newark and pronounced dead.

The U.S. coast guard and New York City rescue boats crisscrossed the dark Hackensack River throughout the night.. In a frantic search to find a Jersey City police officer.

He's been missing since 8:15 last night.. When the EMS vehicle he was driving in with another officer... Plunged off the Lincoln Highway River Bridge. One officer was pulled from the river about two hours later and rushed to University Hospital. The vehicle was later found and pulled from the river.

The water in that area is about 44 feet deep.

The search for the other cop grew increasingly difficult as the night wore on, rescue crews had to deal with heavy rain, flooded nearby roads and thick fog. The river was lit up with emergency lights to help New York City divers in the frantic search for the missing cop.

The officers were on their way to place flares a the scene of an incident on the bridge--when they drove off it.

"There has been an unfortunate tragic accident involving two of our officers," Jersey City Police Chief Robert Troy said in a brief statement. He added that the search would continue.

The Coast Guard says the officers just didn't see that the bridge was up to let a tug boat pass through.

The safety gate was down but it's flashing warning lights were not on. The fog only made matters tragically worse.

"Maybe those pieces were not functioning," said Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega, who was standing near the scene. "All we know is that they are in the water. If those arms aren't there you just drive like there's no tomorrow."

But, he added, "No matter how bad the fog is you would see it, because there's lights that flash."

The bridge is often used by truck drivers coming or going from the Lincoln Tunnel. It is a 300-foot-long vertical-lift bridge that is raised and lowered like an elevator in between two columns.

*Search Resumes for Body of Second Officer*

*MATTHEW VERRINDER*
Associated Press Writer

Two police officers in an emergency truck plunged more than 40 feet off an open drawbridge in dense fog, and authorities said Monday they believe both died.

The body of one officer was recovered and authorities searched the frigid Hackensack River Monday for the second.

The vehicle fell into the river Sunday night, after the officers crossed the Lincoln Highway Bridge and placed flares to warn motorists the bridge's safety warning system was not operating, said police Chief Robert Troy.

The safety bar and bell used to warn motorists when the bridge is open had not been working for two days, Troy said.

Before the officers turned around and drove back across the river, the bridge's middle span was raised to allow a tug boat to go under.

"As dark as it was, as foggy as it was, as rainy as it was, they had no idea," Troy said.

The body of Officer Shawn Carson, 40, was found Sunday night. He was pronounced dead at University Hospital in Newark. Troy said he believed the impact of the truck hitting the water killed the 16-year veteran of the force.

Divers and other rescue and recovery teams continued searching the 40-degree water on Monday in an effort to recover Officer Robert Nguygen, 30, who had been with the police department for six years.

"We won't stop until we do," Troy said.

The bridge, which links Jersey City and Newark, is known by several names, including the Hackensack River Bridge.








Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*Many Factors Adding Up to a Deadly Scene on a Foggy Bridge *

*JEFFREY GETTLEMAN*
_From The New York Times on the Web (c) The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission_

JERSEY CITY, Dec. 26 - The fog was thick, the rain was icy and as Officers Shawn Carson and Robert Nguyen headed back to Jersey City, they had no idea that the road underneath them was about to run out.

It was around 8 Sunday night. The two officers were delivering emergency flares to colleagues directing traffic on the Lincoln Highway Bridge, an old-fashioned steel elevator bridge over the Hackensack River that lifts a piece of the roadway straight up when it opens. The bridge's crash gates, which prevent vehicles from dropping into a void when the span is raised, had recently been damaged by a wayward truck, which is why officers were needed that night.

As Officers Carson and Nguyen finished passing out the flares, a tugboat slipped into the channel. The bridge operator raised the bridge. Apparently, no one told the two officers.

Officer Carson, a part-time track coach known for his charm, and Officer Nguyen, a son of Vietnamese immigrants known for his Police Department test scores, climbed back into the front seat of their Ford F-550 utility truck and headed into the fog. In front of them was the open span. Forty-five feet beneath them was the river. Their truck flew off the roadway and plunged into the water. Officer Carson's body was found Sunday night, Officer Nguyen was still missing yesterday, and presumed dead.

If it had been a different type of bridge, if the warning gates had been working, if it hadn't been so foggy or if a tugboat hadn't happened to pass by, these two officers would probably still be alive.

But it seems that a set of unusual factors conspired to take their lives that night, leaving Jersey City officials distraught and confused.

"There's no doubt in my mind those officers didn't know the bridge was up," said Jersey City's police chief, Robert A. Troy.

Asked why they had not been told, Chief Troy said: "I don't know. I don't know why this happened."

"The weather was definitely a factor. The rain. The fog," he said. "You couldn't see your hand in front of your face."

As of Monday evening, police boats were still searching the brown-gray 40-degree water of the Hackensack River for Officer Nguyen's body. Divers pulled Officer Carson from the river bottom two hours after the accident and took him to University Hospital in Newark, where he was pronounced dead. More than 300 police officers from across New Jersey have joined the search, including a Jersey City contingent who showed up in their pajamas, leaving their families on Christmas night and vowing not to go home until their comrades were found.

The officers have been working in shifts, some combing the weed-strewn riverbanks, others standing in the rain, riveted to the decks of their search boats, their orange slickers the only spot of color on a drab landscape of chain-link fences and long-cool smokestacks.

The Lincoln Highway is a key piece of this post-industrial landscape, a bumpy, narrow four-lane strip of asphalt, with no shoulder, that connects Jersey City to Newark by way of Kearny. Most people refer to it as the 1/9 truck route, to distinguish it from the parallel passenger car route, the Pulaski Skyway. Both routes run east-west, spanned by iron bridges like the vertical-lift Lincoln Highway Bridge. The roads are considered among New Jersey's most dangerous, because they are full of potholes, unforgiving and heavily traveled.

On Friday morning, a postal truck ran off the road on the eastbound portion of the 1/9 truck route in Kearny, damaging the concrete gate that closes the roadway when the Lincoln Highway Bridge is raised.

The truck also sideswiped the railroad-crossing-style wooden arm that swings across the road, warning drivers to halt.

Erin Phalon, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, said fixing the gate was a major job, requiring one to two weeks. "This isn't just a pothole," she said.

Complicating matters, the bridge is near a vital point at the Port of Newark and needs to be raised about once a day for ships and boats serving the port.

The transportation agency faced a tough choice: close the entire road on a busy holiday weekend; keep the bridge down and bar ships from passing; or improvise a solution until the bridge's gate could be fixed. The agency decided to keep using the bridge and worked out an agreement with local police departments to be on call if it needed to be raised.

Three times over the holiday weekend, the call came and police officers were dispatched to shut down traffic and clear the bridge deck so it could be safely raised.

But on Sunday night something went wrong.

A tugboat captain radioed the bridge operator sometime before 8 p.m. to lift the bridge, Ms. Phalon said. The Kearny police were called to stop traffic, but there were not enough officers available, said Police Lt. Thomas Osborne of Kearny.

So several Jersey City officers were sent to the bridge. Officer Carson, 40, and Officer Nguyen, 30, were part of the second wave, equipped with a couple of cases of flares, so drivers would be able to see the temporary roadblock, which was set up about 200 feet from the gap.

The weather was horrible. A thick fog curled across the water. Visibility was down to inches. A cold rain coated the roadway, making it more dangerous than it normally is.

"I was out there, after the accident, standing right under the top of the bridge and I couldn't even see it," said Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy of Jersey City.

Ms. Phalon said the bridge operator was "in direct communication" with the Jersey City police. But she did not know if the operator was talking to officers on the bridge or a dispatcher. "I'm not sure who he talked to," she said.

The Jersey City police chief said that was the critical issue: Who was talking with whom, and when?

"There are a lot of things I want to know that I'm not going to comment on right now," Chief Troy said.

About 8:15 p.m., Officers Carson and Nguyen crossed the bridge heading west. Once in Kearny, they essentially made a U-turn to get to the checkpoint on the eastbound side of the road. They gave the flares to the other officers, police officials said. They wished them a merry Christmas. Then they headed back east, to their station in Jersey City. Police officials said they were not sure who had been driving.

The bridge takes less than 10 minutes to raise and lower back into place. In those few minutes while Officers Carson and Nguyen were passing out flares, the bridge was raised behind them.

They would have had little warning before they plunged into the river, because, unlike a drawbridge, where the roadway folds up, the roadway of a vertical-lift bridge, from the perspective of a driver, simply disappears.

And on that night there was no margin for error.

"There were a lot of things wrong with that bridge," Chief Troy said.

_John Clarke Jr., Jennifer Medina and Nate Schweber contributed reporting for this article._

*Related* 

First Report: Jersey City ESU Truck Plunges Into River
The Incident: Many Factors Adding Up to a Deadly Scene on a Foggy Bridge
The Victims: Jersey City Officers: Products of a City Who Gave Back to It Each Day
AP Video: The Search
WABC Search Slideshow


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

Divers Find Body Of N.J. Officer Who Plunged Off Bridge

*NEWARK, N.J. -- *Divers recovered the body of a Jersey City police officer Thursday afternoon near the drawbridge from which he and another officer plunged to their deaths on Christmas night, New York City police said.

The body of Officer Robert Nguyen was found between 1 p.m. and 1:45 p.m. by New York City police divers, who handed the body off to Jersey City police, said Paul Browne, chief spokesman for New York City police.

Nguyen was in an emergency services vehicle that plummeted about 45 feet off the open drawbridge in blinding rain and fog into the Hackensack River on Sunday night.

The body of the other officer, Shawn Carson, 40, was found about 90 minutes after the accident.

Browne said Nguyen's body was found in about 50 feet of water some 70 feet from where the truck went into the frigid river.

The officers had crossed the Lincoln Highway Bridge from Jersey City to Kearny to help other officers place warning cones and flares because the safety bar and bell used to warn motorists when the bridge was open were out of order, damaged in a truck accident.

Before the two officers drove back across the bridge, its operator raised the middle span to allow a tug boat to pass underneath. The police officers' truck went off the open end of the bridge and into the water, police said.

Authorities, including divers and officials using boats and sonar, had been trying to find Nguyen's body since the accident.

On Wednesday, Nguyen's mother took part in an emotional farewell ceremony held on the bridge. Sobbing uncontrollably, she pleaded for her son to come back to her as relatives supported her under each arm.

"I want to see him! Please! Momma wants to see him!" cried Bichvan Nguyen. "Where are you? Please come up! I want to see you!"

Carson's funeral is scheduled for Friday.

*Previous Stories:* 

December 27, 2005: Officers' Police Truck Plunges Off Foggy Drawbridge
December 26, 2005: New Jersey Cop Killed In Plunge Off Drawbridge
_Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed._​


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