A well-known Piscataway police officer was shot and killed in his home on Thursday.

Jerry Mahoney was off duty when he was killed in his Gibson Street home. His son, a Middlesex County College student, was also shot. The son has been treated and released from Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center.

Mahoney was so well known in his Piscataway community that he was known as ?the mayor.? He founded the D.A.R.E. program in his community, was vice president of the school board and a coach. Mahoney was a regular at the Junction Diner, where the staff called him ?Uncle Jerry.?

Friends and neighbors visited Mahoney?s home throughout the day Thursday to console each other.

"There wasn't a person on this planet that he wouldn't help," said Angie Hill, his friend. "You could call him in a heartbeat." Hill said that Mahoney recently sent her a ?Merry Christmas? text message that she will never erase.

?He was just a fabulous, fabulous human being,? Hill said.

Mayor Brian Wahler released a statement Thursday afternoon in which he called Mahoney a ?gentleman in every sense of the word? and said that Mahoney?s loss ?is almost indescribable.?

The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office is investigating Mahoney?s death as a homicide.