Memorials Set for Lower Patrolman Slain on Duty 30 Years Ago
NORTH CAPE MAY – On Feb. 18, 1994, Patrolman David C. Douglass Sr. of the Lower Township Police Department responded to a call about suspicious activity at Sunnyside and Fieldview drives.
A man was seen taking items from a house in the area and placing them at the curb. The individual, who was later described as a disgruntled, recently fired employee of the Peking Palace restaurant, was removing items from a home where restaurant employees lived. The man, identified as Chung Ho, 49, of New York City, also set fire to the house.
According to one source, Douglass arrived on the scene around 7:15 p.m. and made contact with the man. According to David Douglass Jr., it is not certain whether his father was in physical contact with him. One version suggests Douglass struggled with Ho, who wriggled out of his jacket and broke free.
As he ran he turned and fired a shot, striking Douglass in the neck. Douglass managed to fire one shot, striking his assailant in the hand, before his gun jammed. He was able to get to his car and call in that he had been hit. He was airlifted to Atlantic City Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Douglass Jr. was 12 when his father was killed. He is now 42 and has been a Cape May County sheriff’s officer for 15 years.
Douglass Jr. said he would like to question Ho, also known as Chung Hop, about the sequence of events when his father was shot. He said there is some indication that his father was sitting in his police cruiser when Ho shot him. The bullet entered the officer’s neck and stopped in his rib area.
Douglass has been researching the events of Feb. 18, 1994, and the months that followed, as much of what happened after the shooting was a blur to the then-12-year-old.
But former Lower Township Police Chief Ed Donohue said Feb. 18, 1994, is etched in his memory as much as the Kennedy assassination, the Challenger explosion or the 9/11 attacks are for many Americans.
A township police detective at the time, he said he was home when he heard fire sirens. Then he heard a call over his scanner saying shots had been fired and an officer was down. He grabbed his body armor and his weapon and went out the door.
“When I got to the scene I asked who got hit and they said Dave Douglass,” Donohue said.
He said he considered Douglass, 34, an 18-year veteran of the department, one of his best friends.
Donohue said Lower Township is not like a big city that might have thousands of officers, where if an officer is shot it would likely be someone another officer didn’t even know.
He said that during his time with the department he heard of two officers being shot. Rocco DeNote was shot on June 30, 1987, by a man who had barricaded himself in his house. DeNote survived his injuries but retired from the police force.
In the Douglass case, the suspect’s jacket was left at the scene; it might have been grabbed by Douglass or might have been caught on a barbed wire fence, according to Douglass Jr. The jacket turned out to contain evidence that led to Ho’s arrest. Donohue said that inside a jacket pocket was a business card with a name and New York lottery tickets that had been filled out by hand.
Douglass Jr. said the jacket’s contents also included a Chinese language newspaper, a New York transit coin and a couple of keys on a key chain that read “Vasinee Food Corporation” – an importer of Asian food products.
The lottery tickets were found to have been bought at two bodegas in Chinatown located within a block of Ho’s apartment. Police also found in the jacket an NJ Transit bus ticket directed to New York City and a menu from Peking Palace.
The business card Donohue mentioned had written on it the phrase “Drive me to Jamesway in North Cape May,” which was located in the same shopping center as Peking Palace.
Douglass Jr. said he interviewed the driver of the bus that carried Ho from Atlantic City, and he recognized Ho, who repeatedly showed him the back of the business card so he would be left off at the right place.
Another key was found in the yard of the house in North Cape May where the crime occurred. Douglass Jr. said once Ho’s apartment in New York’s Chinatown was located, the key was a perfect fit and gave investigators evidence to ask for a warrant.
Donohue said there was a woman who caught the suspect in the headlights of her car the evening of the crime and was able to give a good description to police. He said a state police sketch artist was able to create a very good composite drawing of the suspect.
Armed with these pieces of evidence the police were able to identify Ho as the suspect in the murder of Douglass. Armed with the warrant, police were able to find the murder weapon. After a two- to three-month investigation, aided by New York Police Department detectives on the Asian Crimes Investigation Team, police located Ho in Chinatown.
He was charged with murder, aggravated arson and burglary. He pleaded guilty to the murder charge and was sentenced to life in prison. He is in East Jersey State Prison, Rahway.
According to information posted on the Department of Corrections website, Ho will be eligible for parole on March 31. Douglass Jr. said he would like to attend the parole hearing.
In addition to his service with the Lower Township Police Department, Douglass Sr. was a lieutenant in the Town Bank Fire Department. He helped create the Lower Township SWAT team, was an instructor at the Cape May County Police Academy and was a past president of the Policeman’s Benevolent Association. He was survived by his wife, son, daughter and stepdaughter.
A Documentary
Douglass Jr. had been thinking about creating a documentary for years. He started to discuss it with former Lower Township resident John Gamble and producer Chance Meeting, and with Connor Eckel, who is filming it.
He said the filming started on Feb. 18, 2023. As part of the story, he is hoping to interview Ho.
“There are only two people who really know what happened,” Douglass said, “and Chung Ho is one of them.”
Douglass Jr. was at a friend’s house when his father was killed, playing outside. He said his friend’s mother came out of the house, and he could tell immediately from the look on her face that something had happened. He said for days, perhaps a week after the fact, it was unclear what was going on.
“People were just coming and going, dropping off food, it was all just a blur,” he said.
Life would eventually get somewhat back to normal – as normal as things could get for a boy who had lost his father.
“Everything changed forever,” he said. “I don’t even know what life would have been like. I was young. I never had a father figure.”
In 2009, Douglass Jr. joined the Cape May County Sheriff’s Office. He said he did not gravitate toward law enforcement, perhaps because of what happened to his father, but it just kept coming up.
Now, 15 years into his law enforcement career, he has thoroughly researched every aspect of the prosecutor’s files related to his father’s murder. He has spoken to all of the detectives on the case and traced their steps. He has also done numerous local interviews and has spoken to the FBI, as well as to the bus driver who drove the suspect from Atlantic City.
He is planning a trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at the end of the month to interview a retired NYPD detective who worked on the case and will be going to New York City to interview others.
Douglass Jr. spoke to the commissioner of the state Department of Corrections about interviewing Ho and was told he would have to get the inmate’s consent.
“The case is already solved,” he said. “I just want to know how he was shot. Was it a foot pursuit or what?”
Douglass Jr. said X-rays suggest to him that his father was sitting in his patrol car when he was shot.
“I just want to know how the shooting took place,” he said. “I have the case file. I’m not trying to solve something. The only thing is that no one knows how he was shot.”
Douglass said he has mailed a letter to Ho requesting an interview.
Two memorial services are being planned to mark the 30th anniversary of Douglass Sr.’s death. The first is at 10 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 18, at the Town Bank Fire Company, 224 Town Bank Road, North Cape May. There also will be a memorial at 7:15 p.m. that evening at the gravesite, located at the Cold Spring Presbyterian Church, 780 Seashore Road, Cape May.
Contact the author, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
