Five New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association executive board members flew to Dallas to support the officers slain there.
BERNARDS -- A township police officer is among a contingent of New Jersey law enforcement officials who flew to Dallas this week in a show of solidarity in the aftermath of the mass shooting that killed five police officers in the city, according to a report in the Bernardsville News.
Township police officer Hank Werner, who also serves as third vice president of the New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association, is in Dallas on the PBA-funded trip and has attended the funeral of two officers and plans to attend funerals of two more on Friday and Saturday, according to the report.
N.J. leaders discuss shootings
The officers were killed on the night of July 7 during a protest march in downtown Dallas that occurred just days after video circulated on social media of police in Minnesota firing upon a black motorist, Philando Castile, and police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, killing another black man, Alton Sterling.
Those police shootings happened in the midst of a national climate of distrust in the black community for police because of the recent shootings of young black men. President Barack Obama has called the deaths "an American issue that we all should care about."
The officers were killed by a black U.S. Army reservist who allegedly said he wanted to kill white police officers as revenge of the killing by police of black men.
Dave Hutchinson may be reached at dhutchinson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DHutch_SL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.