Skip to content
POLICE TRANSPARENCY NJ
Menu

Fatal Encounters record · Independent third-party dataset

Paul Sowell

April 21, 2011 · Ramsey, Bergen County

Details as recorded

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

Name as recorded
Paul Sowell
Age as recorded
66
Gender as recorded
Male
Race as reported
European-American/White
Date of the injury resulting in death
April 21, 2011
Location as recorded
Ramsey, Bergen CountyNorth Franklin Turnpike and Spring Street Ramsey NJ 07446 Bergen
Highest level of force as recorded
Gunshot

Where the dataset places it

The location Fatal Encounters recorded for this death: Ramsey, Bergen 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: Mahwah 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.

Paul Sowell shot and killed himself after a police chase during a Rockland County bank robbery.

Source reported by Fatal Encounters: http://mahwah.dailyvoice.com/police-fire/suicide-bank-robber-suspected-in-other-holdups/629342/ (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 32 New Jersey records the dataset dates to 2011, and one of 32 it holds for Bergen 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 Paul Sowell died on April 21, 2011 in Ramsey, Bergen 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 "Mahwah 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 Ramsey, Bergen County, on April 21, 2011. The address as recorded is North Franklin Turnpike and Spring Street Ramsey NJ 07446 Bergen.

Sources

  1. [1]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Row 18743. Derived from the public Fatal Encounters national dataset (coverage 2000-2021; collection ended December 2021), https://fatalencounters.org/. Retrieved July 10, 2026. ↩