Police Officer Is Killed During a Traffic Stop in Queens

A police officer died on Monday after being shot during a traffic stop in Queens, the police and city officials said.

The suspected gunman, who was also wounded, was the first to fire his gun during the evening encounter in Far Rockaway, striking the officer, Jonathan Diller, in the torso below his protective vest, Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban said at a news conference at Jamaica Hospital, where Officer Diller was taken.

The officer’s partner returned fire, striking the man, who was also taken to Jamaica Hospital, where he is being treated for his injuries, officials said at the news conference.

“This is a devastating moment,” said Mayor Eric Adams, who also spoke at the news conference. “We have to bury another cop,” he added.

Officer Diller joined the Police Department in February 2021, according to city records. He has been recognized three times for “excellent police duty.”

In a social media post, Commissioner Caban said Officer Diller and his wife had a young child.

“We struggle to find the words to express the tragedy of losing one of our own,” the commissioner wrote.

Officials did not identify the suspect or the second person who was in the vehicle. It was unclear on Monday whether the driver or the passenger had shot Officer Diller, but the driver was arrested on a gun charge last year, police officials said.

The police said the episode had begun shortly before 6 p.m. on Monday, when Officer Diller and his partner from the Police Department’s community response team approached the car because it was illegally parked at a bus stop on Mott Avenue.

Officer Diller asked the suspect several times to get out of the car, said Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives, but the suspect refused, pointed a gun at the officer and fired.

Officers in the area heard the shots and sprinted toward the scene, according to security footage from a Mott Avenue deli about two blocks away.

Jummai Ezedebego, 57, who was nearby at the Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue subway station, also heard the gunfire and watched as other passengers scattered and helicopters whirred overhead.

“Everybody was running and the police started coming,” Ms. Ezedebego said.

Later that night, officers put yellow police tape around a gray S.U.V. parked on Mott Avenue. Shards of glass littered the sidewalk, and the front passenger door window appeared to have been pierced by a bullet.

Before Monday, the two most recent New York police officers killed in the line of duty were Wilbert Mora and his partner, Jason Rivera. The officers were gunned down in January 2022 as they answered a domestic disturbance call in Harlem.

“We should never be here,” Commissioner Caban said at the news conference. “And we’re here far too many times,” he added.

Dakota Santiago contributed reporting.