CMPD: Man killed by police fired at officer; friend disputes account

A man killed by an undercover police detective on Albemarle Road in east Charlotte on Thursday had fired his weapon at the officer, and investigators recovered a weapon and a bullet, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said Friday.

CMPD said Josue Javier Diaz, 28, was shot after he fired a gun at the officer. Investigators recovered a .22-caliber revolver at the scene and identified a bullet hole and projectile in the unmarked vehicle the officer had been driving, the department said.

But at an emotional vigil Friday evening attended by more than 100 people, Diaz’s family, friends and activists contended that the shooting was not justified. A friend who said he witnessed the incident said Diaz was approaching the officer’s vehicle to apologize after his truck side-swiped the officer’s auto.

“What happened to him was a grave injustice,” Diaz’s mother, Doris Loza, told the crowd in Spanish.

Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said her group is looking into the shooting. Mack said an eyewitness told her a different version of events than what police said. “I am always cautious when police say that a shooting is necessary,” said Mack, who attended the vigil. “We want to get to the truth.”

Late Friday, responding to questions raised by family members, CMPD spokesman Rob Tufano said in a statement: “During the course of the investigation, detectives with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Homicide Unit determined through physical evidence and witness statements that Josue Javier Diaz fired his weapon at the undercover detective.”

A deadly encounter

Police say the incident started early Thursday afternoon along Albemarle Road, a busy commercial strip.

A truck carrying Diaz and another person side-swiped the detective’s unmarked vehicle while it was stopped in traffic.

Diaz, the driver, continued to travel outbound on Albemarle Road, and the detective pulled behind the truck to follow it. The detective notified police communications and requested assistance from a marked patrol unit, CMPD said.

“While the detective was notifying communications, the suspect stopped his vehicle directly in front of the detective’s vehicle,” CMPD said in a statement. “The suspect exited his vehicle and displayed a handgun. The detective perceived an imminent threat and fired his service weapon, striking the suspect.”

At a news conference Thursday, CMPD Deputy Police Chief Jeff Estes said it appears “it was like a road-rage incident that cost someone his life.”

Diaz had a Mecklenburg County purchase permit to buy a gun, records show. It’s unclear if he used the permit to buy a gun or if he later received a North Carolina concealed-carry permit.

As is standard with a shooting involving an officer, CMPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau will conduct a separate but parallel investigation to determine whether CMPD policies and procedures were followed. The detective will be placed on administrative leave, which is also standard.

CMPD has not disclosed his name and has only described him as an Hispanic man. It’s not known when CMPD might identify the detective.

A different account

Family and friends painted a different picture of the incident.

Diaz’s friend, Juan Jose Silverio, who said he was in the truck at the time of the shooting, said at the vigil that Diaz’s gun remained in the glove compartment the entire time.

Diaz “got out of the truck to talk to (the detective) but when he got out of his truck, the officer started to fire,” Silverio said.

Silverio said he was sitting in the front passenger seat when the shooting happened.

Diaz’s Facebook page includes posts he made with images of himself holding guns and showing off his tattoos but his family asked that he not be seen as a criminal simply because he liked tattoos and guns.

Loza, his mother, became emotional when she described how her son and other Latinos are often wrongly deemed criminals for having tattoos.

“He felt very sad sometimes that he was judged for them,” she said. “Americans can have tattoos and be proud of them and (Latinos) we can’t.”

The shooting “was an injustice,” Loza said. “I’ve cried for others when their children were killed. I said, ‘God, don’t let that happen to me.’ And now, here I am.”

An obituary posted Friday on a funeral home website said Diaz born in Ventura, Calif., and moved to Charlotte at age 8. He attended Independence High then went into the construction business with his father, the obituary said. It also said he was married with three children.

Ada Martinez, Diaz’s sister, described her brother as a loving father. She said media reports that surfaced Friday stating that her brother was a member of the SUR-13 gang are untrue.

“People say that because he was born in California,” Martinez said. “He liked guns. He had a permit to carry a gun.”

Community reaction

The fatal police shooting is the city’s first since the death of Keith Lamont Scott on Sept. 20 in northeast Charlotte. That killing led to several days of protests and rioting, and added to the national debate about killings of minorities at the hands of police officers.

Mecklenburg County District Attorney Andrew Murray in November ruled Officer Brentley Vinson was legally justified in shooting Scott. Vinson is black as was Scott.

On Friday, CMPD Chief Kerr Putney met with eastside community leaders to discuss the shooting, Mayor Jennifer Roberts told the Observer.

Roberts said she hopes to arrange a larger meeting in the next couple of days with immigrant leaders as well as leaders of eastside neighborhoods.

At the vigil, speakers criticized CMPD for shootings of blacks and Latinos, saying that Diaz’s killing added to a grim death toll.

“We need accountability,” said Hector Vaca, who organized the event for Action NC, a social justice advocacy group. “We will not stand for this.”

This story was originally published January 28, 2017 at 8:56 AM with the headline "CMPD: Man killed by police fired at officer; friend disputes account."