The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office released video footage from a private security camera and audio recordings of 911 calls and a police radio call related to a fatal incident in which a police vehicle struck a pedestrian on Aug. 1 in East Brunswick.
According to the preliminary investigation, Officer Mitchell Ngai of the East Brunswick Police Department, who was on-duty and in uniform, was operating a marked patrol vehicle on Route 18, responding to a motor vehicle accident in the southbound lanes of the roadway, according to information provided by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.
The driver of a Honda Civic called police to say he was in a one-car accident on Route 18 near Lake Avenue; he hit a power line, according to the 911 calls. The power line was across both the northbound and southbound sides.
Ngai, who was responding to the accident, was traveling northbound in the vicinity of the reported accident at approximately 3:35 a.m. when he struck Julius Filep, 55, of Edison, who was walking in the roadway in front of 260 Route 18, according to the statement.
Medical aid was rendered to Filep, who was transported by ambulance to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where he was pronounced deceased at 4:13 a.m.
The fatal police encounter remains under investigation by the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability.
The video and audio released on Sept. 16 is pursuant to policies established by the Attorney General in 2019 that are designed to promote the fair, impartial, and transparent investigation of fatal police encounters, according to the statement.
Investigators met with Filep’s family and their attorney on Sept. 16 to review the recordings.
