New York City's mayor announced that a police officer was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Monday. This is the first killing of a New York City police officer in two years.
“We lost one of our sons today. It's very sad. It's very painful,” Mayor Eric Adams told reporters at a Queens hospital.
Police said the shooting occurred in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens just before 5:50 p.m. Officer Jonathan Diller and his partner were part of the NYPD Community Response Team and were conducting the traffic stop at the time.
Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who identified the slain officer on X (formerly Twitter), said the suspect approached the vehicle, pointed a gun at the officers and shot Diller, who was under his bulletproof vest. He said Diller's partner returned fire and shot and killed one person inside the vehicle, who was taken to an area hospital.
Diller was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center but could not be saved, officials said. He was a three-year veteran of the police department, married and had young children, Caban said.
“We are struggling to find the words to express the tragedy of losing one of our own,” Caban told X.
Police Department Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said two officers initially approached the driver and passenger because they had illegally parked at the bus stop.
“He was asked to get out of the car,” Kenney said of the driver. “He received multiple lawful commands to get out of the car. He refused. And when the officers took him out of the car, instead of getting out of the car, he stopped at our officers. I shot him.”
Kenney said Diller “continued to fight” after he was injured and attempted to disarm the suspect. Kenney said the suspect had previously been arrested on firearms charges in April 2023.
“The gun hit the ground, and because the gunman was still reaching for it, this officer was still being shot, but he was able to grab it,” Kenney said.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene.
“It happened so fast,” one bystander, Melissa Morgan, 39, told the Daily News. She said: “The officer fell to the floor and other officers dragged them out of the car. They were running for cover.”
Another witness, Deon Peters, told the New York Post that he saw Diller on the ground.
“He was moving and saying, 'I got hit, I got hit,'” Peters said.
The killings of NYPD police officers occurred in 2022 when two officers, Wilbert Mora, 27, and Jason Rivera, 22, were ambushed in a Harlem apartment after responding to a call of a domestic disturbance. It was the first time since.
Adams said he met with Diller's grieving widow and called the shooting a “senseless act of violence.”
“Can I be more clear? It's the good guys against the bad guys,” he said. “And these bad guys are violent. They carry guns. And the police uniform, our symbol of public safety, is completely ignored by them.”
Patrick Hendry, president of the New York Police Benevolent Association, expressed outrage over the shooting.
“These attacks on New York City police officers must stop now,” he said. “I have a family upstairs and they're devastated. There's a police officer in this hallway who lost a brother. It has to end now.”
__
Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Jake Offenhertz contributed to this report.
