Gunman at Panera in Princeton — Cops Close Nassau Street

Luckily my area had no restrictions on it, so I could get out of there easily. From what I heard the library and a few other areas close by were still under a shelter in place order and not allowed to leave, but that could just be hearsay. Otherwise, everything is still blocked off and the Panera is still surrounded, I will continue to update when anything comes across the local channels. Seems like not much info is going to come out of the police until whatever this is gets resolved.

UPDATE 6 p.m.: The New Jersey Attorney General’s office announced Tuesday evening that, after a standoff, police shot and killed an armed man inside the Panera restaurant across Nassau Street from the Princeton University campus. Details are on the attorney general’s website.

From AG press release

According to the preliminary investigation, the incident began shortly after 10 a.m. when the armed man entered Panera Bread on Nassau Street, across from the Princeton University campus. Customers and employees were able to flee the building, and police secured the perimeter of the restaurant. The standoff between police and the armed man in the restaurant continued for several hours, during which negotiators attempted unsuccessfully to get the suspect to surrender peacefully. The standoff ended shortly before 3 p.m. when the suspect was fatally shot by police. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Looks like we may never know exactly what drove his person to do this. But it seems like suicide by police was the intention at first glance...sad.

Luckily no one else was hurt, and Princeton is on spring break so it may have been less crowded than usual, but it almost seems like his intention was never to hurt anyone else. Will wait and see what any investigation will bring. The road is said to be closed off for the night for the investigation to continue.

Weather is supposed to get very nasty tonight into tomorrow so good luck to the investigators...

In the end, it always makes me wonder what the cutoff is when police have just been there too long that they have to go in by force. I understand a loss of business for the immediate area and the possibility of destruction. But how many hours extra of negotiations is a life worth?