{"id":1605,"date":"2023-07-15T18:42:38","date_gmt":"2023-07-15T18:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nulifedaily.com\/?p=1605"},"modified":"2026-01-12T12:43:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T19:43:44","slug":"an-unarmed-hispanic-man-was-sitting-in-his-car-then-police-fatally-shot-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/an-unarmed-hispanic-man-was-sitting-in-his-car-then-police-fatally-shot-him\/","title":{"rendered":"An Unarmed Hispanic Man Was Sitting In His Car \u2014 Then Police Fatally Shot Him"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nothing has been done about police abusing and killing innocent people. Politicians, government agencies and police unions simply ignore how people are being beaten and murdered by police officers. These people are murderers protected by murderers; an American new normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Florida, “Derek Diaz, 26, was fatally shot by Orlando police \u2014 and the entire encounter happened in less than a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Orlando Police Department released<\/a> body camera footage of the fatal encounter Wednesday afternoon following demands from Diaz\u2019s family and national civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The footage shows an officer riding his bicycle past several parked cars before approaching Diaz, who was sitting inside one of the vehicles with his window down. The officer shouts at Diaz to turn off his car and music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, sir,\u201d replies Diaz, who is holding his cellphone and balls of aluminum foil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The officer demands Diaz hand him the foil. He replies \u201cMy bad\u201d and hands over the foil. The officer then tells Diaz to put his hands on the steering wheel, which he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diaz lifts his hand from the wheel and begins to move it toward a compartment in the vehicle but stops. The officer yells, \u201cPut your hands on the wheel!\u201d while taking a step back and seemingly firing a shot simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The officer runs backward from the car, and the body camera shows that another officer is on the scene. The second officer asks if someone had fired their gun. \u201cYeah, I did,\u201d the first officer replies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With guns pointed at the car, officers yell at Diaz to show his hands. But as they approach the vehicle, they see Diaz slumped over in the driver\u2019s seat, unresponsive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police pull him out of the car and try to administer aid, but Diaz remains unresponsive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police did not find a weapon on Diaz or in the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Orlando Police Department identified the officer as Jose Velez, who served with the department for three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orlando Police Chief Eric D. Smith said in a news conference officers were patrolling the area to \u201cremove illegal drugs and crime guns off our streets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement released with the body-worn camera footage, police said Diaz tossed an object out of the car window that was later discovered to be narcotics. It is not clear from the bodycam footage whether Diaz threw anything from the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police department did not immediately respond to HuffPost\u2019s request for additional comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diaz\u2019s family is now focused on justice. They also said they believe Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) should acknowledge the tragedy of their son\u2019s death. DeSantis\u2019 office did not respond to a request for comment on the shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis and Monique Worrell, the state attorney in the Orlando area, have been at odds for months<\/a>, as DeSantis has criticized the prosecutor for not pursuing certain types of crimes such as sex trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some believe he\u2019s setting the stage to remove Worrell from office, akin to how he removed former Hillsborough County District Attorney Andrew Warren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diaz\u2019s family wants to know if the governor would hold police, specifically the cop who fatally shot Diaz, to the standards he highlights in his political talking points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe should, because everyone should be held accountable for every action they make,\u201d Claxton said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who you are or what your state of power is \u2014 if you do something wrong, you should be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nothing has been done about police abusing and killing innocent people. Politicians, government agencies and police unions simply ignore how people are being beaten and murdered by police officers. These people are murderers protected by murderers; an American new normal. In Florida, “Derek Diaz, 26, was fatally shot by Orlando police \u2014 and the entire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,81],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"category-justice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1607,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions\/1607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}