Cop who killed shoplifting suspect told he could be facing a killer
A police dispatcher told officers responding to a shoplifting call at a store in Deptford Township Saturday that one of the suspects was wanted in connection with an earlier homicide, the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office said.
So when a car sped through the store’s parking lot, allegedly toward a 17-year veteran sergeant, he fired three shots into the vehicle, killing 36-year-old LaShanda Anderson. Another suspect was arrested and a third remains on the loose.
The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office said Monday they’re not sure what homicide the dispatcher was referring to and that they’d have to review audio of the incident.
However, there is no dashcam or bodycam footage to ascertain what happened in the lot during the fatal incident, but Prosecutor Charles Fiore said Sunday his office will conduct a “comprehensive and objective investigation” into the shooting.
The woman killed Saturday did have an extensive record, which was unknown to responding officers.
Anderson, a Philadelphia resident, had 24 criminal cases filed against her in the Court of Common Pleas — Pennsylvania’s equivalent to New Jersey Superior Court — between January 2000 and March 2015 in Philadelphia County alone before she allegedly tried to run down police officers in the parking lot of a Marshalls store.
Court records also show Anderson’s two alleged accomplices, Chanel Barnes, 38, and Raoul Gadson, 43, both of Philadelphia, have varying criminal histories of their own. Barnes was arrested at the scene, while Gadson is still at large, authorities said Monday.
In one of her last criminal cases in the area, Anderson was charged with attempted murder after what ABC Philadelphia reported was a February 2015 shooting at a laundromat in the the city’s Tioga-Nicetown section.
Records show the attempted murder and weapons charges against her were dismissed after a mistrial.
She received probation in that case after pleading guilty to possessing a criminal instrument, but was sentenced the same day to 11-1/2 to 23 months in prison in a separate case after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit aggravated assault.
In October of last year, Delaware State Police sought the public’s help in locating Anderson and two others in connection with a theft ring operating in New Castle County.
They allegedly targeted Marshalls stores in Wilmington and Newark, conspiring to steal “large quantities of merchandise” from the stores, police said. Also sought in that spree were Lucius Jones, 50, of Waymart, Pennsylvania, and Maurice McCorkle, 31, of Philadelphia.
All three had active felony warrants on file, according to Delaware authorities. McCorkle later turned himself in to police.
New Jersey court records show Barnes was sentenced by a Superior Court judge in Essex County last October to three years’ probation after pleading guilty to a charge of third-degree theft.
She was jailed on a shoplifting charge Saturday.
Pennsylvania records show Gadson’s last felony conviction in Philadelphia was a guilty plea in 2009 to possessing controlled substances as contraband, an offense for which he was sentenced to up to a year in the state’s Intermediate Punishment Program.
He faces assault and robbery charges in Saturday’s incident.
The trio allegedly stole merchandise valued at $3,433.41 by hiding it in suitcases and trying to leave the store. Their actions were caught on store surveillance cameras, police said.
All three were known to store staff. “Defendant is known to Marshalls loss prevention to commit retail thefts with LaShanda Anderson and Raoul Gadson,” according to the criminal complaint filed against Barnes.
Store personnel confronted them as they tried to leave Saturday.
Gadson physically assaulted a store employee as Anderson and Barnes tried to flee in their vehicle, the complaint states.
The employee suffered scratches to his body and a ripped shirt, police noted
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact GCPO Detective Anthony Garbarino at 856-466-6192 or the prosecutor’s office at 856-384-5500. Anyone with information about Raoul Gadson’s whereabouts is asked to contact GCPO Detective John Petroski 856-498-6238.
Amanda Hoover contributed to this report.
Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty.
Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
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