Fatal Encounters record · Independent third-party dataset
Vincent "Woody" McConnell
October 5, 2004 · Hoboken, Hudson County
Details as recorded
Every value below is shown exactly as Fatal Encounters recorded it.[1]
- Name as recorded
- Vincent "Woody" McConnell
- Age as recorded
- 16
- Gender as recorded
- Male
- Race as reported
- Race unspecified
- Date of the injury resulting in death
- October 5, 2004
- Location as recorded
- Hoboken, Hudson County1 Hudson Pl Hoboken NJ 07030 Hudson
- Highest level of force as recorded
- Drowned
Where the dataset places it
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: Hoboken 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.
While at the police station early Tuesday afternoon, the teen asked to go to the bathroom, and his handcuffs were removed. McConnell was allowed to use a private bathroom instead of the secure one in the holding cell. While in the bathroom, he unscrewed the security gate over the window, climbed out, and ran south down Court Street while police pursued on foot, cars, and motorcycles, police said. He ran through the Hoboken Train Terminal to the south side of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Station. There, according to police, he climbed over the rail, where he stood for a moment. Police said they pleaded for the teen not to jump. They said he yelled "I'm not going back to jail. As he fell, police tried to grab him, but according to police reports, he pushed them away. McConnell could not swim and quickly went underneath the surface of the water. According to police, one officer took off his belt and lowered it to the teen, but he couldn't grab it. Mayor David Roberts said that no officer jumped in after McConnell because of concerns about the swift Hudson currents and undertow. He drowned.
Source reported by Fatal Encounters: http://www.hudsonreporter.com/view/full_story/2400929/article-Tragedy-on-the-Hudson-Teen-drowns-after-escaping-from-police-custody (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 34 it holds for Hudson County across 2000 to 2021. Browse every New Jersey Fatal Encounters record by year.
Records from the same county and year
- Raymond Looney (2004) December 30, 2004
Questions and answers
What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?
Fatal Encounters records that Vincent "Woody" McConnell died on October 5, 2004 in Hoboken, Hudson County, with "Drowned" 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 "Hoboken 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 Hoboken, Hudson County, on October 5, 2004. The address as recorded is 1 Hudson Pl Hoboken NJ 07030 Hudson.
Sources
- [1]Fatal Encounters, New Jersey subset. Fatal Encounters (fatalencounters.org). Row 26878. Derived from the public Fatal Encounters national dataset (coverage 2000-2021; collection ended December 2021), https://fatalencounters.org/. Retrieved July 10, 2026. ↩