March 9, 2003 – A 26-year-old man was shot and killed by St. Thomas police officers at Vendors Plaza on Saturday night. Fernando Estinia Diaz was pronounced dead at 9:15 p.m. at Roy L. Schneider Hospital.
Less than an hour earlier, Deputy Police Chief Theodore Carty said, police had confronted Diaz a distance away from Emancipation Garden and opened fire on him after he failed to drop a knife he was wielding.
Carty said on Sunday morning that police were en route to the Garden Street area in response to a report of a fight in progress. On the way, Carty said, officers came upon Diaz running past the downtown post office and Emancipation Garden toward the Waterfront.
Carty said officers pursued Diaz, ordered him to drop the knife and, when he failed to do so, shot him several times. A large pool of blood on the vendors plaza pavement on Sunday marked the spot where Diaz had fallen on Saturday night.
In the gunfire, an officer, Conrad Gilkes, was shot in the leg, Carty said, describing Gilkes’ condition as stable.
According to Carty, Diaz was attended to by emergency medical technicians and transported by ambulance to the hospital, where he died of his injuries.
Carty denied accounts by witnesses that Diaz was shot while handcuffed and that officers had use pepper spray to disable him before he was shot.
When the gunfire broke out, the Traditional Indians were just a short distance away practicing their V.I. Carnival routines. At the scene as forensic officers gathered evidence, a number of bystanders were critical of the police officers' haste in shooting Diaz. Many commented openly that the victim had already been disabled and was no longer a threat when officers opened fire.
Carty said on Sunday that the shots were fired by one officer, whom he would not identify.
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