Mother Of Slain Jersey City Officer Seals: ‘How Can People Be So Cruel?’

By Staff Reporter
Posted on 12/12/19 | News Source: Vosizneias.com

JERSEY CITY (VINnews) — Deborah Perruzza, mother of slain Jersey City police officer Joseph Seals experienced a parent’s worst nightmare Tuesday. A son who goes out to work and never comes home.

Perruzza recounted what it was like to go in and see her son’s body. “When I saw him yesterday, laying there, it was disgusting,” she told Fox News. “How can people be so cruel?”

Seals was one of 4 victims in a deadly shooting attack Tuesday, that killed him, 3 civilians and the shooters themselves. The incident began in Bayview Cemetery, where Seals who was on duty but wearing plainclothes came upon the shooters. Seals was fatally shot on location, after which the bloody battle continued at the nearby JC Kosher Supermarket, where 3 civilians were murdered.

Seals, a detective, was part of the department’s push to get guns off Jersey City’s streets.

As the shooting dominated the news cycle Tuesday afternoon, Perruzza was at her home, just 20 minutes away in Bayonne, NJ.

“I was watching the news and I saw there was a shootout and it wasn’t too far from me,” she said. “I saw it was in my son’s district.”

She texted her son, who she believed was respinsible for the night shift at the time, but received no response.

“I texted him, ‘Joe, are you alive? You ok?’ I never heard back from him,” she said. “I called his wife but she hadn’t heard anything.”

She then got a call from her daughter with the horrific news.

Seals had been shot twice, in the head and on his upper arm. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

“I kept thinking, it’s not even real,” Perruzza said. “I just kept watching the news and I would see his picture and I was just saying to myself, ‘Why him? Why him?'”

By the time she arrived at the hospital, there was a crowd of supporters already gathered. She saw her 4-year-old garnddaughter telling people, “My daddy is sick.”

The last time Perruzza had seen her granddaughter prior to Tuesday was at her princess-themed birthday party on Nov. 2. Seals, a man who always put his family first, old his mother he’d work double shifts — anything, really — to make sure he could give his daughter the birthday party she wanted. He did in fact go all out for the party, even hiring princesses to come and mingle with the guests.

He had a rambunctious side, Perruzza said with a small chuckle.

“He was a clown. The nuns [at his school] would call me and say, ‘Joe’s at it again,'” she said. “He was a clown with everyone.”

Seals had a dream since he was a young child to become a police officer. It was inevitable, his mother said. As a child, he’d play “cops and robbers” all the time.

“He followed his dreams. He wanted to be a police officer. It was all he’s ever wanted to do and he accomplished it,” Perruzza said. “Everyone loved him. He was a fair cop. He helped people.”

Fellow police officers visited Perruzza on Tuesday night to offer comfort. “I had police officers crying in my lap,” Perruzza said.

Perruzza intends to stay strong and show her family support during this hard time. Seal’s father had passed away just 2 years ago from lung cancer.

“They watched him die over 12 days… and now this,” she said.

The circumstances surrounding the shooting, as well as a motive for the attack, is still the subject of an ongoing investigation. Senior law enforcement officials have since announced that the Kosher supermarket was a targeted location. However, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal has said that authorities are not yet prepared to announce a motive for the attack.