Franklin cops shoot and kill gunman in New Brunswick

NEW BRUNSWICK — Police shot and killed a suspect who was wanted for non-payment of child support and violating drug probation after they said he shot at them early Saturday morning.

Diahlo Grant, 27, of the Somerset section of Franklin, exchanged gun fire with Franklin police after leading them on foot pursuit into this city after 1 a.m., authorities said.

Grant was pronounced dead 3:17 a.m. at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital after being wounded by police at 1:31 a.m., according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, which is handling the investigation of the police shooting.

The encounter with Grant began in Somerset County near Somerset and Home streets in Franklin, authorities said.

Franklin cops then followed Grant across the city line along Somerset Street, prosecutor’s spokesman Jim O’Neill said Saturday.

O’Neill said one of the officer performed CPR while waiting for an ambulance.

Police said they recovered Grant’s gun.

Grant was sentenced just in February to five years of probation in a plea deal with the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office over cocaine-possession charges from 2013, records show.

In 2011, a Superior Court judge sentenced him to a year in prison for dealing marijuana in a Franklin school zone in 2008 as part of a plea deal that dismissed a weapon-possession indictment.

The New Jersey chapter of Black Lives Matter cited unconfirmed eyewitness reports of Grant's body remaining on the street until after 10 a.m. even though authorities reported that he was pronounced dead hours earlier at the hospital.

The group, which supports implementing an independent civilian review board in the Hub City, said in a statement Saturday that "we have very little faith in a fair and impartial investigation into this tragedy."

This is the first fatal police shooting in the city since 2011, when Barry Deloatch, 46, was shot and killed after a struggle with police. City police in 2013 also shot and wounded Akeem Williams, who a year later was sentenced to three years in prison for shooting at police after they told him to drop his weapon.

Route 27 had been closed in the city Saturday morning as a result of the incident.

Sergio Bichao is deputy digital editor at New Jersey 101.5. Send him news tips: Call 609-438-1015 or email sergio.bichao@townsquaremedia.com.