JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A family is demanding answers after a man was shot and killed overnight by three officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office outside his son’s home in the Dinsmore area.
Investigators said officers responded to a reported domestic situation before finding Jose Cabrera, 62, sitting inside a car outside a home on Fox Tail Lane. Police said when officers approached Cabrera and asked him to step out of the car, he got out holding a knife and advanced “aggressively” toward them. Officers then fired multiple shots.
Cabrera was taken into custody and transported for medical treatment, where he later died.
According to JSO, Cabrera had left the original scene before officers arrived, but he later spoke with them by phone. Police said he told officers “that he was not going to go back to prison and they were going to have to kill him.”
JSO said the three officers involved were new to the job, and this was their first night out on their own without a veteran training officer with them.
The shooting remains under investigation, which is standard procedure in officer-involved shootings.
Cabrera’s family spoke with News4JAX shortly after the shooting and disputed parts of the sheriff’s office account.
“When I saw the body on the floor, I told my wife, ‘Mami, that they killed my dad. My dad is dead,’” said Joseph Cabrera, the man’s son.
Joseph Cabrera said he was asleep when gunshots woke him and that he ran outside to find his father on the ground.
“I said why you kill my dad? Why did you kill my dad? I said he didn’t have anything in his hand,” he said.
Family members also questioned why officers did not use a Taser.
“It was 22, 25 shots, I counted,” Joseph Cabrera said. “Why too many shots?”
News4JAX Reporter Briana Brownlee asked Sheriff T.K. Waters about the recent of officer-involved shootings. So far, Duval County has five for the year, the most recent two happening in the same week — both deadly.
“When he grabbed the knife, he [the officer] told him, don’t grab that. He told him not to bring it with him, but he did it anyway,” Sheriff Waters said. “They left him with very little choice. When you are advancing towards a police officer holding a knife, the result is going to end up pretty much how it is.”
Cabrera’s daughter said her father struggled with mental illness.
“He was schizophrenic, bipolar,” she said.
The family said Cabrera had argued with his wife earlier that evening and later went to his son’s home.
“He walked away from the problem, came and parked his car … and all he could hear was ‘whoa, whoa, whoa’ — that was the last words that papi said,” said Adlin Cabrera Bowler, Cabrera’s daughter, through tears.
News4JAX has requested the officers’ body camera footage and copies of the 911 calls from JSO.
Watch the full JSO briefing below: