Authorities investigate fatal police-involved shooting in Camden

Authorities on Wednesday took photographs and set up evidence cones at the Camden apartment complex where police fatally shot a suspect Tuesday night. A woman who knew him said the shooting never should have occurred.

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office on Wednesday afternoon identified the man as Freddy Baez, 24, of Camden.

Ashley Purnell, 25, who said she was Baez's girlfriend and that they have a 2-year-old son, said she was staying at her mother's unit in the 3200 block of Rutledge Walk when Baez started banging on the door.

Purnell said she didn't want to come down, so her mother called police to calm him and make him leave.

"He was a little enraged," Purnell said. "That's it."

When two Camden County police officers arrived around 7 p.m. to the complex in the Fairview section, Baez and the officers exchanged gunfire, authorities said. Baez was taken to Cooper University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The Prosecutor's Office did not release the identities of the two officers, who were not injured. They have been placed on paid administrative leave, standard procedure in a police-involved shooting.

Purnell said she heard five to six shots outside her mother's apartment in the Crescent Gardens Apartments complex near Crescent Boulevard.

Purnell said she was not sure whether Baez was armed when he showed up at the apartment. Authorities said the 911 caller indicated he might have been armed.

But Purnell said that even if he was, he didn't deserve to die.

"What happened here should have never happened," she said.

Some neighbors in the complex said they heard multiple gunshots, while others returned home to yellow tape and police cruisers outside their doors.

"We've never had a problem before," said Karen Arnold, 53, who said she moved into the apartments in August. She was not home at the time of the shooting. "This is a nice, quiet neighborhood."

Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson declined to comment. The Prosecutor's Office, citing the ongoing investigation, declined to say how many shots were fired or how many times the suspect was hit.

It was the second fatal police-involved shooting in Camden this year.

In July in East Camden, two Camden County police officers shot Oscar Camacho Jr., 33, whom authorities said was suicidal and had aimed a weapon at the officers. The weapon, which police thought was a revolver, turned out to be a BB gun.

Camacho had called 911 just before the shooting, saying he would "come out at the cops," and had crashed into several parked cars. Sgt. Keith Henderson and Officer James DiMarco, who fired the shots, were placed on administrative leave.

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