Remembrances Mark 5th Anniversary Of Officer's Murder

TOMS RIVER, NJ Patch.com-  Residents and officials throughout Ocean County are paying tribute Thursday morning to the memory of Christopher Matlosz, the Lakewood Township police officer who was gunned down five years ago as he sat in his police car.

In Lakewood, where Matlosz, 27, had worked for five years, Mayor Menashe Miller has ordered the flags flown at half-staff throughout the township, according to The Lakewood Scoop.


“Lakewood Township stands in solidarity with its police department as eternalize the memory of Officer Matlosz,” Miller told the Lakewood Scoop. “Law and order is the very basis and fabric of any society. Harming or shooting of a law enforcement official is waging war on the entire population.”

“Five years ago today the Ocean County Law Enforcement community lost a brave man,” a post on the Ocean County Sheriff’s 911 Facebook page said. “Lakewood Police Officer Christopher Matlosz was murdered. Not a day goes by that we do not miss him. Always remember the brave men and women who go to work every day and expect to return home to their families...Blue Lives Matter... God Bless Christopher Matlosz....”

In Englishtown, where Matlosz worked as a patrolman for two years, the borough police force is wearing mourning bands on its badges and turning on blue lights in remembrance.

Other departments and residents are sharing the Facebook profile photo from the Lakewood Police Department, which has a Lakewood patch with a blue mourning stripe across it with Matlosz’s badge number 317, and wording memorializing the officer.

Jahmell Crockam, who was convicted in 2012 of shooting Matlosz three times in the head at close range, recently filed an appeal of the conviction. He is serving a life sentence in Matlosz’s murder, with an additional life sentence in a second, unrelated murder.

A decision on the appeal is not expected for months.