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Fatal Encounters record · Independent third-party dataset

Darryl Terrell Clayton

February 17, 2004 · Paterson, Passaic County

Details as recorded

Every value below is shown exactly as Fatal Encounters recorded it.[1]

Name as recorded
Darryl Terrell Clayton
Age as recorded
36
Gender as recorded
Male
Race as reported
Race unspecified
Date of the injury resulting in death
February 17, 2004
Location as recorded
Paterson, Passaic County121 Kearney St. Paterson NJ 07522 Passaic
Highest level of force as recorded
Gunshot

Where the dataset places it

The location Fatal Encounters recorded for this death: Paterson, Passaic County

The marked point is the dataset's own geocoded location for this record, as recorded. Every other New Jersey record in the dataset is shown in gray. A point on a map is where a death was recorded, not a finding about anyone.

Agencies as recorded

Agency or agencies involved, as recorded: Paterson Police Department

An agency appears here because it appears in the record's as-reported agency field, nothing more. Its presence is not a claim of fault or responsibility.

Department pages (matched by this site at high confidence)

The source's account

Fatal Encounters' description of the incident, verbatim. This is the source project's own third-party narrative, not this site's reporting.

Darryl Clayton, a man with a history of mental illness, stabbed two police officers. Police said he had a knife poised to strike again when Lt. Ron Van Kluyve, who fired one fatal round at close-range into the suspect's left eye, killing him. Police had been called because Clayton was in emotional crisis.

Source reported by Fatal Encounters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/195-IBRCycvVBL6BnWxnDH6c06IuXv1E00PM1frAm_RU/edit?usp=sharing (external link, as recorded in the dataset).

If you are a family member of the person named here, or represent one, and something in this record is wrong, or you want the record removed, requests go through the corrections page. Every request is checked against the source record.

This is one of 31 New Jersey records the dataset dates to 2004, and one of 36 it holds for Passaic County across 2000 to 2021. Browse every New Jersey Fatal Encounters record by year.

Records from the same county and year

Questions and answers

What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?

Fatal Encounters records that Darryl Terrell Clayton died on February 17, 2004 in Paterson, Passaic County, with "Gunshot" as the highest level of force. Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset of deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind; a record is not a finding of fault or misconduct.

Which agency or agencies were recorded as involved?

The record's agency field reads "Paterson Police Department". Presence in that field means the agency appears in the record as reported, nothing more; it is not a claim of fault or responsibility by any officer or agency.

Where did this happen?

The record places the death in Paterson, Passaic County, on February 17, 2004. The address as recorded is 121 Kearney St. Paterson NJ 07522 Passaic.

Sources

  1. [1]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Row 27528. Derived from the public Fatal Encounters national dataset (coverage 2000-2021; collection ended December 2021), https://fatalencounters.org/. Retrieved July 10, 2026.