Former Bergen County Resident Killed In Police-Involved Shooting

FAIR LAWN, NJ – A 57-year-old Virginia woman died following a shooting Tuesday that involved police officers after she confronted them with an ax, according to authorities.

Gay Ellen Plack, formerly of Fair Lawn’s Radburn section, died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen following the incident, according to a video statement released Thursday evening by Henrico County Police Chief Humberto Cardounel.

Around 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, police arrived at Plack's home to perform a welfare check and didn't receive an answer when they knocked on the door, the chief said.

“After several attempts, the officers went around back and saw the resident’s vehicle parked there and found a door that was unsecured,” Cardounel said. “At that point they made the decision to go in and verify her well being.”

“She never answers the door, she’s afraid they’ll take her to the hospital,” a neighbor said. “They were walking around her house, shining a flashlight in her bedroom window. Officers went inside and then I heard three gunshots.”

After calling out Plack’s name several times, officers made forced entry into a locked bedroom, the chief said. Plack then confronted police and started swinging an ax, Cardounel said.

“The officer at that point literally had four seconds to make a decision," Cardounel said. "Although he made several attempts, and pleaded for her to stop and for her to desist, she continued to come at him with the ax. The officer had to make the most difficult decision in his life, his career, which was to use deadly force.”

"We are extremely sorry for the family; we express our sympathies for this horrific event,” Cardounel said. “But under the circumstances the officers were confronted with a situation in which they really had no other option.”

The two officers involved were not injured in the incident and have been placed on administrative leave, as per police protocol.

Plack's older brother, Bob Bostock, told a local NBC affiliate in Virginia that his sister had just turned 57 years old and "had been a fierce warrior for decades against the unrelenting and unforgiving mental illness of bipolar disorder."

Plack, a former nurse, "did not deserve to die this way, terrified in her own home by police officers, sent there to help her, who instead ended her life," Bostock told the news station.