WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey police officer was treated and released after a gun battle with a man who drove into the state after fleeing police in Pennsylvania and stealing a police vehicle, officials said.
Arthur Disanto Jr., 41, who was critically wounded in Tuesday’s exchange of gunfire, has been charged with armed carjacking, and further charges are pending. It’s not clear whether he has an attorney to speak on his behalf.
Disanto, wanted in the July 3 shooting of a woman in the Philadelphia suburb of Media, was on a motorcycle when Pennsylvania troopers tried to stop him Monday night in Marple Township. A plainclothes officer in an unmarked police sport utility vehicle later spotted him in Folcroft, but officials said he reached for a gun and then got in the SUV and drove off as the officer retreated behind the vehicle. The officer shot out windows of the fleeing SUV.
The vehicle was tracked to Deptford Township, New Jersey, but the suspect had already exited, taking SWAT gear, authorities said. A drone spotted him on a shed roof, and he ran and traded gunfire with officers shortly before midnight in front of a Washington Township home, authorities said.
NJ.com reports that a Monroe Township police officer wounded during the shootout was treated and released after sustaining non-life-threatening injuries, officials confirmed Wednesday. The officer wasn’t identified.
Disanto was also struck three times by gunfire and remains in critical but stable condition at Cooper Medical Center, the Camden County prosecutor’s office said. The office said it was named independent prosecutor by the state attorney general’s office to probe “the use of force matter and the potential underlying criminal charges.”
In addition, state police plan charges stemming from the pursuit, and Disanto faces charges in Pennsylvania stemming from the carjacking of the police vehicle and the alleged attempted homicide in last month’s shooting, authorities said.