An Orlando police officer won’t be charged after killing 26-year-old Derek Diaz during a traffic stop downtown last year after he was cleared by a grand jury, the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office announced Monday evening.
The July 3 shooting happened after police on bicycles stopped Diaz, suspecting him of drug activity, near the corner of North Orange Avenue and Jefferson Street. Body camera video of the stop showed Officer Jose Velez taking two objects wrapped in foil from Diaz and ordering him to keep his hands on the steering wheel.
A camera angle from an officer standing on the passenger side captured Diaz slightly lifting open the center console. Diaz did not reach inside, putting his hands on the steering wheel when Velez told him to do so. “My bad, my bad,” Diaz said.
“Don’t move,” said Velez, who video showed then opened the driver-side door. Diaz took both of his hands off the steering wheel, his left hand raised in the air.
The video shows Diaz returning his left hand to the wheel after Velez ordered him to do so again, but opened the center console with his right hand and appeared to reach inside. Velez yelled, “Put your hands on the steering wheel” and immediately shot Diaz in the back, with video showing an object Chief Eric Smith, of the Orlando Police Department, later said was “narcotics” flying out the window.
It’s not clear from the video how many shots were fired. Diaz, who is survived by a then-5-year-old girl, was taken to a hospital where he later died. Though Smith told reporters hours after the shooting that Diaz tried to get a gun from the center console, none was found at the scene.
Natalie Jackson, a local attorney with Crump Law, stood with famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump demanding the release of the body camera video in the days after the shooting, which was later shown to the family before it was released publicly. Jackson, along with Diaz’s family, criticized OPD for what they said was an aggressive approach to a man who “was sitting peacefully in a legally parked car.” While it’s not publicly known what drugs police said were found in the car, Diaz’s family said he had a medical marijuana license.
A spokesperson for Crump Law did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the grand jury decision.
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. That intersection is just blocks from the Orange County Courthouse.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the shooting while Velez, who had been with OPD for three years at that time, was on paid administrative leave. On Tuesday, OPD said in statement that Velez resigned from the agency in November “not in relation to this incident.” Still, the department will launch an internal investigation into the shooting.
“Chief Smith supports the decision of the Grand Jury,” the statement added.
Monday’s grand jury decision is the second law enforcement shooting it has reviewed since a policy reviewing uses of force was implemented by State Attorney Andrew Bain. The first resulted in the clearing of two Osceola County deputy sheriffs who killed 20-year-old Jayden Baez in April 2022 while responding to shoplifting at a Target store in Kissimmee.
Despite declining to charge the deputies, the panel publicly blasted the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office for its heavy-handed approach as part of the policy allowing them to recommend changes to protocols.
After clearing Velez in Diaz’s death, however, the grand jury “declined to issue a presentment on the case and chose not to issue a statement on the circumstances surrounding the shooting,” a press release from the State Attorney’s Office said.
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