PISCATAWAY, New Jersey — A New Jersey state grand jury has voted not to file any criminal charges against the Piscataway police officer who fatally shot Jordan Barnes, 29, during a January 5 encounter at a River Road home where three of Barnes's relatives were found dead, the state Attorney General's Office announced on Tuesday, November 3.

The grand jury finished its deliberations on Monday, November 2, and voted a “no bill,” concluding that no charges should be filed against Piscataway Police Officer John Ward, the Attorney General's Office said. A “no bill” means the jurors decided the evidence presented to them did not support returning an indictment — it closes the criminal case against the officer over the shooting itself.

Source: New Jersey Office of the Attorney General

The night of January 5, minute by minute

According to the Attorney General's investigation, at about 5:30 p.m. on January 5, 2026, the Piscataway Police Department received two 911 calls. The first captured a woman yelling “Stop! Stop!” amid commotion; investigators later found that call came from the cell phone of Jeanmarie Barnes, a relative of Mr. Barnes who was subsequently found deceased inside the residence on River Road. The second call came from another relative who reported that Mr. Barnes was threatening to stab individuals inside the residence.

At about 5:33 p.m., the first of multiple officers arrived and saw Mr. Barnes standing on the front porch. As that officer approached, Mr. Barnes picked up a knife from the ground, went inside and locked the front door. The officer spoke in the driveway with the relative who had called 911, who said three additional people were inside the house with Mr. Barnes. While officers were outside, Mr. Barnes appeared in a second-story window, made a gesture to his neck, and yelled to the officers that they were not getting inside the house.

Officers then assembled on the front porch. As one officer tried to speak with Mr. Barnes through the closed front door, Officer Ward looked through the front door's sidelight and saw two individuals lying on the floor inside, apparently unresponsive. The officers decided to enter, using a key provided by the relative.

Inside the doorway, officers encountered Mr. Barnes holding a kitchen knife in his left hand. Officers commanded him to put the knife down and get on the ground. He did neither, and instead advanced toward the officers. Three officers discharged their tasers, to no effect. Officer Ward then fired his service weapon, striking Mr. Barnes. Officers provided immediate medical aid and cleared the residence for emergency personnel, who pronounced Mr. Barnes dead at the scene. Authorities recovered a large kitchen knife from the front porch, which Mr. Barnes had been holding, and a second, broken knife from the immediate threshold of the entrance.

Three relatives found dead inside the home

After the shooting, police found Jeanmarie Barnes, 60, Richard A. Barnes, 86, and Brenda F. Barnes, 84, deceased inside the residence with multiple suspected stab wounds, the Attorney General's Office said. Their deaths are being investigated by the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, and that investigation was still described as ongoing in Tuesday's announcement. In January reporting, WPST and the Star-Ledger identified the three as Mr. Barnes's mother and grandparents, and Piscataway Mayor Brian C. Wahler told reporters at the time that he believed Mr. Barnes was responsible for their deaths — an allegation that prosecutors have not publicly announced a final conclusion on.

Source: WPST / The Star-Ledger (January 2026 reporting)

How New Jersey investigates a fatal police encounter

The case followed the path New Jersey law sets for every death during an encounter with police. Under state law, N.J.S.A. 52:17B-107(a)(2), the Attorney General's Office must investigate such deaths, and every investigation must be presented to a state grand jury, under the Independent Prosecutor Directive of 2019. The investigation in this case included witness interviews, photographs, radio transmissions, video footage, and autopsy results from the medical examiner. The Attorney General's Office said a conflicts check found no actual or potential conflict of interest, and that the grand jury was instructed on the elements of potential criminal homicide offences and on self-defence and other forms of legal justification before it voted. Recordings of the 911 calls, radio transmissions and body-worn-camera footage from the encounter had been released publicly earlier in the investigation.

What happens next

With the grand jury process complete, the Division of Criminal Justice will now determine whether any principal in the case should be referred to the appropriate law enforcement agency for administrative review under the Attorney General's Internal Affairs Policy and Procedures, the office said; the division monitors any resulting review until it is completed. No criminal charges remain against Officer Ward in connection with the shooting.

For Piscataway — a Middlesex County township on River Road near Rutgers University's Livingston campus, in the same central New Jersey corridor as Edison, home to one of the largest Punjabi and South Asian communities on the US East Coast — Tuesday's announcement closes a case that has hung over the neighbourhood since January. The legal answer on the officer's actions has now been given by a grand jury of New Jersey residents; the prosecutor's findings on the three deaths inside the house are still to come.