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CMPD: Armed driver fired at undercover detective before fatal shooting

By Mark Becker, wsoctv.com, Alexa Ashwell, and DaShawn Brown, wsoctv.com
By Mark Becker, wsoctv.com, Alexa Ashwell, and DaShawn Brown, wsoctv.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said an undercover officer fatally shot another driver who collided with his unmarked car on Thursday afternoon in east Charlotte.

The undercover detective shot Josue Javier Diaz, 28, who he said approached him with a gun in a road rage incident around 1:20 p.m. on Albemarle Road, near Farm Pond Lane, CMPD told Channel 9.

A police report obtained by Channel 9 Friday states that Diaz "fired his weapon at the officer."

[PHOTOS: Armed suspect killed in officer-involved shooting]

Police said the weapon recovered at the scene used by Diaz was a .22 caliber revolver. Homicide detectives located a bullet hole and projectile in the undercover detective’s vehicle, police said.

Police test fired the .22 caliber revolver and found it was in good operating condition. The projectile recovered from the undercover detective’s vehicle was determined to be a .22 caliber round.

[Vigil held following deadly officer-involved shooting]

CMPD issued a statement saying the detective followed the vehicle that collided with his unmarked car and kept going through the east side of the city around 1:18 p.m. The statement said the detective reported the hit-and-run and was requesting assistance when the other driver stopped in front of him.

"The driver got out of the vehicle, produced a handgun, and shots were fired from the undercover detective, striking and killing the driver," Charlotte-Mecklenburg Deputy Chief Jeff Estes told Channel 9.

On Thursday, Estes said he didn't know if the dead man fired a shot, but his gun was recovered at the scene, and a passenger in the car was taken into custody.

“The weapon was recovered on scene immediately outside the vehicle,” Estes said. “We recovered the weapon there. The specifics of the altercation between the subject and the undercover officer need to be fleshed out, so I'm not able to comment just yet.”

The detective's identity was withheld because of his undercover status. He will be placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

[Friend of man killed in officer-involved shooting tells different story]

The undercover officer was not wearing a body camera.

“I heard some shots when I came out of my apartment,” a witness said.

Channel 9 has also heard from people who claim to have been witnesses to the shooting, who have described different versions of what happened than what we have heard from police, but Eyewitness News cannot confirm that they were actually there or what they saw.

The officer is Hispanic, as well as Diaz.

Channel 9 checked to see if Diaz had any previous run-ins with police and found nothing other than some traffic tickets in the last 10 years.

Albemarle was closed for hours during the investigation.

Police chief Kerr Putney, city manager Marcus Jones and deputy city manager Sabrina Joy-Hogg left the city council’s retreat in Raleigh for Charlotte Thursday after the officer-involved shooting.

City leaders on hand continued to meet and monitor the situation throughout the day.

"My hope is that our community is better prepared to be able to look at this, and that we will be able to present some facts and there will not be false narratives,” Mayor Pro Tem Vi Lyles, said.

At the end of the retreat, Mayor Jennifer Roberts was scheduled to call CMPD for an update. She is staying in Raleigh but continuing to talk with leaders in the city.

“We obviously want to get more information. We are monitoring the situation,” Roberts said. “Any shooting is a tragedy.”

Word of the shooting came nearly an hour after CMPD released recordings from body cameras and dashboard cameras of an unrelated fatal police shooting. Those six videos were made public in response to a judge's order.

Police said Rodney Rodriguez Smith was killed on June 2 as police sought to arrest him for allegedly wounding a passenger in a shooting aboard a city bus.

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