An Orlando police officer did n’t get charged after killing 26- season- old , Derek Diaz , during a traffic stop city last year after he was cleared by a great judge, the Orange- Osceola State Attorney’s Office announced Monday night.
Near the intersection of North Orange Avenue and Jefferson Street, officers on motorbikes stopped Diaz and made the arrest for drug use. Officer Jose Velez was seen on the body cameras film at the stop telling him to keep his hands on the steering wheel and taking two items wrapped in metal from Diaz.
Diaz was somewhat lifting read the center console when a cameraman standing on the passenger side captured him from a different angle. When Velez instructed him to do so, Diaz did never go inside and instead put his hands on the steering wheel. ” My poor, my negative”, Diaz said.
” Do n’t move”, said Velez, who video showed then opened the driver- side door. Diaz took both of his fingers off the steering wheel and raised his left hand in the air.
Velez instructed Diaz to turn his left side to the vehicle, but Diaz accidentally opened the centre console with his right and made an appearance inside the picture. Velez yelled,” Place your hands on the steering wheel” and instantly shot Diaz in the rear, with videos showing an image Chief Eric Smith, of the Orlando Police Department, after said was “narcotics” flying out the window.
The number of shots fired is not apparent from the film. Diaz, who is survived by a therefore- 5- year- old woman, was taken to a hospital where he eventually died. None of the weapons were discovered at the scene despite Smith telling reporters shortly after the shooting that Diaz attempted to get one from the center console.
In the days following the shooting, which was later shown to the family before being made public, Natalie Jackson, a local attorney with Crump Law, teamed up with renowned civil rights lawyer Ben Crump to demand the release of the body camera video. Jackson and Diaz’s family criticized OPD for what they claimed was an aggressive treatment of a man who “was sitting peacefully in a legally parked car.” Diaz’s family claims he has a medical marijuana license, though it’s not known what drugs police say were in the vehicle.
A message asking for a comment on the grand jury decision was not immediately responded to by a Crump Law spokesperson.
At the time, Smith said Diaz was stopped in” a hotspot for criminal activity”. His officers, he added, responded to 431 incidents at the North Orange and Jefferson intersection in the 18 months before Diaz was killed. The Orange County Courthouse is only a few blocks away from that intersection.
Velez, who had worked for OPD for three years at the time, was on paid administrative leave while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation. OPD announced on Tuesday that Velez left the company in November” not in relation to this incident.” Still, the department will launch an internal investigation into the shooting.
The statement continued,” Chief Smith supports the decision of the Grand Jury.”
The grand jury’s decision on Monday is the second law enforcement shooting it has looked into since State Attorney Andrew Bain’s policy was put in place to look at uses of force. The first resulted in the clearing of two Osceola County deputy sheriffs who had been attempting to stop the shoplifting at a Target in Kissimmee that had killed Jayden Baez, age 20, in April 2022.
The panel publicly criticized the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office for its overbearing behavior as part of the policy that allowed them to make recommendations for changes to protocols despite declining to charge the deputies.
However, after Velez was found guilty of murder in Diaz’s death, the grand jury “declined to present a statement on the case and chose not to discuss the circumstances surrounding the shooting,” according to a press release from the State Attorney’s Office.
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