A man who executed a Jersey City, N.J. police officer before being shot and killed himself should have murdered more cops, the man’s widow said at a makeshift memorial on Monday.
“He should’ve taken more [officers] with him,” Angelique Campbell told News 12 New Jersey of her husband Lawrence.
Early Sunday, Campbell, who was wanted for a previous murder, ambushed 23 year-old rookie officer Melvin Santiago outside of a Walgreen’s.
According to authorities, Campbell, 27, allegedly told a by-stander, “Watch the TV news later, I’m going to be famous,” reports the New York Post.
But the cold-blooded killing fostered little sympathy for Santiago or his family among Campbell’s widow and neighbors.
“Sorry for the officer’s family. That’s, you know, whatever,” Campbell told News 12. “But, at the end of the day, [Lawrence] got a family too. All they care about is the officer.”
Campbell’s comments were made at a makeshift memorial where her husband’s family and friends left empty bottles of alcohol, balloons and messages such as “Thugs in Peace” honoring the assassin, according to the Jersey Journal.
“He was a good man. He looked out for everybody on the block,” Campbell’s friend, Barbara Jones, told the paper.
The memorial and Angelique Campbell’s comments outraged Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.
“It doesn’t get much lower than this,” Fulop told the New York Post of the memorial. “That won’t be there for the duration of the day.”
“It is sad and disgusting to put up a memorial for a cowardly killer who ambushes a police officer and terrorizes a neighborhood,” Jersey City public safety director James Shea said in a statement, according to the Jersey Journal. “But in no way do the few people who put a memorial up for a killer represent the larger Jersey City community that admires the work of the Jersey City Police Department.”
Angelique Campbell backed away from her despicable remarks in an interview later on Monday.
“I want to apologize to the officer’s family and to anyone else who got hurt or is suffering for these actions,” she told the Jersey Journal.