Law enforcement have shot 8 people in the Triangle since 2022. Here’s where cases stand.
There have been several shootings by law enforcement officers in the Triangle since 2022 with all but one resulting in deaths.
On March 27, 2023, Raleigh police officers fatally shot a man they say was firing at officers and cars near Ligon Magnet Middle School. The man, who Raleigh police haven’t identified, shot two occupied cars and two police cars, said Police Chief Estella Patterson.
After Raleigh police fatally shot two people last year, Patterson approved a new de-escalation policy that describes what officers should do to encourage someone to obey police orders, rather than resort to deadly force.
The other incidents include both a fatal and a non-fatal shooting by Durham police; one fatal shooting by a Durham County sheriff’s deputy; another fatal shooting by a Duke campus police officer; and a fatal shooting in Chatham County by a N.C. Highway Patrol trooper.
In each case, the agencies have conducted or will conduct internal investigations to determine whether officers violated department policies in the shootings, The News & Observer previously reported.
The officers are placed on administrative leave with pay, pending the outcome of the investigations, which also include a review by the State Bureau of Investigation. The SBI sends its report to the respective county’s district attorney for a determination on possible criminal charges.
Here are details about each shooting this year so far and where those investigations stand.
May 30: Mark Anthony Diaz
The fatal encounter between 21-year-old Mark Anthony Diaz and Trooper Rodney N. Cook occurred around 4:37 p.m., of Memorial Day weekend, according to the State Highway Patrol.
Cook stopped a Ford pickup truck on Harmony Drive near Solo Drive in Siler City for a seatbelt violation, the Highway Patrol said.
“During the course of the traffic stop, the suspect presented a pistol, and the member fired his service weapon, striking the suspect,” the agency said in a news release.
Authorities on the scene began life-saving procedures until emergency medical personnel arrived and took him to be treated. Diaz died from his injuries.
A passenger in the car during the traffic stop fled but later returned. Authorities did not say whether the passenger will face any charges.
Cook, a 16-year Highway Patrol veteran stationed in Chatham County, was not injured in the incident.
“I do want some answers, because an officer is, even if they have a gun, they are meant to detain a person, not kill,” Moises Diaz, the brother of Mark Anthony Diaz, told ABC11, The N&O’s newsgathering partner.
Moises Diaz said he could not confirm whether his brother drove with a gun in the vehicle but told ABC11 that he believed law enforcement if they said he had a pistol. Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. Chris Knox said that troopers do not wear body cameras, but the department released dash-cam footage in June.
Status: On Aug. 19, Jim Woodall, the Chatham and Orange County District Attorney, announced that Cook wouldn’t face any criminal charges. Woodall said Cook was justified in using deadly force according to state law. He based the decision on a review of evidence produced by the State Highway Patrol and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.
An autopsy shows that Diaz had benzoylecgonine in his system, a compound leftover in the body when cocaine is consumed.
Cook had been placed on administrative duty pending an internal investigation, which is routine in any trooper-involved shooting.
May 7: Reuel Rodriguez-Nuñez
Multiple police officers shot and killed 37-year-old Reuel Rodriguez-Núñez on May 7 outside the Raleigh Police Department’s Southeast District police station.
Police Chief Estella Patterson said officers shot Rodriguez-Núñez after he continued to throw Molotov cocktails toward them. She said he did not follow repeated commands to stop throwing the flammable devices, and after he threw one in the direction of an officer, the four officers on-site fired at him.
Police video released by the city of Raleigh on Thursday shows officers giving conflicting messages before shooting at him. Officers fired a total of 30 rounds, according to a Raleigh Police report released five days after the shooting.
He was shot 11 times, an autopsy showed. There were no traces of alcohol, drugs or medications detected in his system at the time of his death, according to the report.
Video shows Rodriguez-Núñez set two parked cars on fire with cups of flammable liquid.
In another, an officer is seen approaching the man with his hands up in a shrug.
“What’s going on, man?,” the officer asks the suspect. “What’s going on?”
That officer did not have a weapon drawn.
Rodriguez-Núñez can be heard in the video saying, “Today... is my day to move on.”
An officer can he heard saying, “Calm down brother, you don’t have to do this.”
The footage appears to show that officers shouted out conflicting commands. One officer repeated “do not do it” and “don’t do it, bro.”
Meanwhile, another officer in separate body camera footage who was closest to him in the confrontation repeatedly yelled “Go ahead (expletive) do it.”
“Do it! Do it! Go a-(expletive)-head. Go right (expletive) ahead. Go ahead (expletive). Do it. Do it.”
Police gave him multiple commands to take his hands out of his pockets before officers fired at him.
A knife is seen on the ground near Rodriguez-Núñez as police officers handcuff him. Officers pick him up and move him away from a smoking police vehicle and start performing CPR.
The police report said six minutes elapsed from the first officer arriving on the scene and the fatal shots.
No officers were injured. At least two patrol cars were destroyed.
Status: On Oct. 10, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said the police officers wouldn’t be charged.
“The evidence in this case reflects that Mr. Nuñez repeatedly threw cups with flammable liquid that were ignited at law enforcement officers after repeated commands to stop and that he posed a risk of imminent deadly bodily harm to those at the scene as well as the public that was nearby,” Freeman wrote in her ruling released Monday.
The district attorney said her findings were separate from whether officers acted professionally or in accordance with department standards and policies.
Activists with Emancipate NC called for the officer who yelled expletives to be fired.
April 30: Durham indecent exposure
Durham police shot a 49-year-old woman at an apartment complex after officers responded to a report of indecent exposure. When they arrived at the complex on Allagosh Drive around 5:30 p.m., they encountered an armed woman.
The woman was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. Police have not released her name. The Durham Police Department did not respond to The N&O’s questions regarding the suspect’s current status.
A recording of a 911 call reveals that police were called after the woman, who wasn’t wearing clothes, was seen throwing furniture off of a balcony toward a parking lot.
A recording of police radio traffic describes a “woman armed with a gun.” Police did not say what kind of weapon she was carrying.
An officer yelled “shots fired, shots fired!” to a police dispatcher during the incident.
Police have not said why the officer shot her or whether anyone was charged during the incident.
Status: Investigator M.P. Strickland was placed on administrative leave after the shooting, police said. The SBI and Police Department are reviewing the case. Durham police said Strickland was wearing a body camera, but added they did not plan to petition the courts for release of the footage.
Jan. 14: Raishawn Jones
A Duke University police officer fatally shot a man who had a gun in the emergency room of Duke University Hospital the night of Jan. 14.
Officers responded to calls from hospital employees saying “a patient took a gun from a cop and he’s shooting,” according to a 911 call.
Raishawn Jones, 38, who was being medically evaluated after being arrested, attacked and injured the officer, according to hospital officials. He fired multiple shots in the emergency room.
A Duke police officer who arrived to help fatally shot Jones.
An autopsy released in May showed Jones was shot three times with one bullet entering his abdomen and damaging his heart.
Jones had been arrested for “erratic driving” while trying to get away from police after crashing into a car in Durham earlier that day and then crashing again.
While Jones was being evaluated, he asked to use the bathroom and had his handcuffs removed, an autopsy report says. He grabbed the officer’s gun and fired multiple shots, according to transcripts of 911 calls requested by The N&O.
Jones had nicotine and at least 0.57 milligrams of Phencyclidine, commonly known as PCP or angel dust, in his body at the time of his death, a toxicology report shows. The illegal drug can cause hallucinations, distort the senses and cause violent behavior.
Both the Durham and Duke officers were wearing body cameras during the shooting, but Durham police said they wouldn’t seek release of the footage, Lt. Randall Packard previously told The N&O.
Status: The case was reviewed by the SBI. Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry said in June that the officer wouldn’t be charged.
Deberry wrote that the campus police officer followed his department’s procedures on using deadly force against suspects who are armed and are endangering lives. Evidence suggests that a “reasonable officer” would have believed the city officer and others in the hospital were “in danger of imminent deadly physical force from Jones.”
The Duke officer was on paid administrative leave, per the Duke University Police Department’s use of force policy, which authorizes officers to use lethal force in certain situations. It requires officers involved in use-of-force incidents involving serious injury or death to be placed on leave with pay until they’re cleared to return to duty.
Jan. 12: Charles Walker Piquet
Durham police officers shot and killed 51-year-old Charles Walker Piquet of Chapel Hill on Jan. 12 when they responded to a reported suicide in progress at a Circle K convenience store on N.C. 54 in Durham.
Officers responded around 3:30 a.m. after a frantic 911 call by a store clerk who said a man in the store was cutting himself.
The front door was locked when officers arrived. When they forced their way inside, they “observed an assailant violently assaulting the store clerk with a sharp object,” Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews said at the time.
One of two officers shot Piquet through the Circle K’s glass doors, The N&O reported. Both officers gave Piquet commands to stop attacking the clerk before they fired additional shots that struck him.
The clerk was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.
Status: The two officers involved, R.V. Gamboa and B.N. Vasquez, were put on paid administrative leave. Police previously said they would not petition for a release of the body camera footage.
Deberry said in June she would not file charges and the officers’ use of force wasn’t excessive, The Associated Press reported.
Jan 11: Daniel Turcios
Raleigh police shot and killed 43-year-old Daniel Turcios on Jan. 11 after a crash on Interstate 440 that he was involved in with his wife and children.
Five officers responded, and body camera footage released in February depicts a chaotic scene that stemmed from an argument between Turcios, police and other drivers.
Turcios, a Salvadoran immigrant, did not speak in English in the footage.
Officers surrounded Turcios after they saw he had a knife in his hand, which he did not drop despite orders to do so from police and a bystander speaking to him in Spanish.
While Turcios was walking away from officers, police tased him. After he fell to the ground, he swung the knife at officers during their attempt to subdue him. Officer A.A. Smith shot him five times, according to an autopsy.
Family members say Turcios had a limited understanding of English and was disoriented by the crash.
A 911 caller suggested Turcios was drunk at the time of the crash, which Police Chief Estella Patterson later cited at a news conference. But an autopsy report detected no alcohol or drugs in his system, The News & Observer reported.
Status: Two officers were placed on leave, Smith and Sgt. W.B. Tapscott. Tapscott fired the Taser at Turcios as he walked away.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman previously told The N&O that the decision to determine whether to pursue criminal charges in the shooting would be made by the end of May.
More recently, Freeman said that a decision would be likely be released in mid-June. She said that she would meet with Turcios’ family before a statement on the decision is made.
Jan. 4: Stephanie Wilson
In the first local law enforcement shooting of 2022, a Durham County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot a woman outside her home Jan. 4 in Bahama, an unincorporated community in northern Durham County.
Authorities said Stephanie Wilson, 28, would not drop a shotgun after multiple requests to do so.
Wilson reportedly rented part of the residence. A 911 call revealed officers were responding to a caller at the home claiming someone was trying to break in, according to a recording and transcript released by the Sheriff’s Office. The caller’s identity was not released.
Deputies were not wearing body cameras because of a delay in implementing them, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Status: One deputy is on administrative leave with pay pending an internal investigation.
Deberry said she wouldn’t file charges against the officer. She said the use of force wasn’t excessive under the circumstances. She said Wilson placed a false emergency call to lure law enforcement to her home, where she pointed a shotgun at officers, The Associated Press reported.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 5:38 PM with the headline "Law enforcement have shot 8 people in the Triangle since 2022. Here’s where cases stand.."
