JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A man was shot and killed by three officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office overnight in the Dinsmore area following a domestic disturbance call, according to police.
JSO Undersheriff Shawn Coarsey said Jose Cabrera, 62, was shot after officers demanded that he get out of his car, which was parked outside a home on Fox Tail Lane, and he grabbed a knife as he got out.
“He came out of the vehicle and started aggressively approaching those officers, yelling something that they were going to have to shoot him,” Coarsey said during a news briefing early Friday.
Coarsey said the incident began around 10:10 p.m. when officers received reports of a domestic disturbance.
Cabrera had already left that scene when officers arrived. However, Coarsey said the officers were able to speak to his wife, who told them he had threatened her and told her something along the lines “that they were both to die that night.”
Officers were also able to speak to Cabrera on the phone, and according to JSO, he told officers “that he was not going to go back to prison and they were going to have to kill him.”
Coarsey said Cabrera’s wife told officers he had probably gone to a family member’s house, located on Fox Tail Lane.
That’s when those officers coordinated with officers who were in the Dinsmore area and went to the home on Fox Tail Lane around 12:30 a.m.
When police arrived, the officers saw Cabrera’s car and approached him.
“When they walked up to that vehicle, that suspect was sitting in the car, they started talking to him, briefly asked him to exit the vehicle,” Corasey said.
According to JSO, that’s when Cabrera grabbed a knife and acted “aggressively” toward officers as he was getting out of the car.
“He kept advancing on them, and they fired several times,” Corasey said.
Cabrera was taken into custody and transported to a hospital, where he later died.
According to Coarsey, the three officers involved were new to the job, and this was their first night out on their own.
The three officers were identified as W. Morris, G. Griffis and R. Rhoden. None of the officers was injured in the incident.
Sheriff T.K. Waters said the officers’ experience level had nothing to do with their response. He added that the officers were “very well trained” and responded as they did because they saw the same threat.
“When you are advancing toward a police officer holding a knife, the result is going to end up pretty much like this,” Waters said. “It’s converning of course, when we run into these types of situations, but they are trained professionals to take care of themselves, take care of the community, and they’re going to do just that.”
This incident marked the second officer-involved shooting this week involving JSO officers, and the fifth one so far this year.
On Tuesday night, a man who had been spotted in a stolen vehicle before running from police was fatally shot when he pulled out a handgun during a foot chase with officers, according to JSO.
The State Attorney’s Office is investigating the shooting. Once its investigation is complete, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office will conduct its own investigation.
Watch the full JSO briefing below: