Linden, New Jersey's police captain says his department lost "family" in a wrong-way crash that kill

(20 Mar 2015) A car carrying three off-duty New Jersey police officers who had just left a strip club traveled the wrong way down a New York City highway and crashed head-on into a tractor-trailer, killing an officer and a civilian and critically injuring two other policemen.
Officials said the dead were identified as two 28-year-old men, one a Linden police officer and the other a civilian.
Both were passengers in the car. The 27-year-old driver and a 23-year-old passenger, also Linden police officers, were listed in critical condition at hospitals on Staten Island, authorities said.
The truck driver suffered injuries that weren't believed to be life-threatening.
Linden police Capt. James Sarnicki said all three officers were relatively new to the force. The officers' names weren't being released until their families could be notified.
"People are in a somber mood. I can see some officers with tears in their eyes and it's an emotional day for all of us," Sarnicki said.
In his 37 years working for the department, Sarnicki said, he couldn't remember any officers being killed in the blue-collar refinery town just across the water from Staten Island.
Flags in front of Linden City Hall, which are part of a war memorial surrounded by smaller American flags, were lowered to half-staff Friday morning.
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