Moments after Detective Jonathan Diller was shot in the stomach on a Queens street on March 25, 2024, he saw that the gunman still had his finger on the trigger and was pointing the weapon at his partner, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
When the gunman, Guy Rivera, tried to fire again, the gun jammed, prosecutors said.
Detective Diller reached out and “with his last bit of strength” pulled the weapon out of Mr. Rivera’s hand, Kenneth Zawistowski, a Queens prosecutor, said during opening statements in Mr. Rivera’s murder trial.
Detective Diller, 31, who was shot just below his bulletproof vest, died later that night and was promoted posthumously from officer to detective. He was married and had a 1-year-old son.
Mr. Rivera, 36, is charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“With his life slipping away, Officer Diller fought through that pain,” Mr. Zawistowski said. “Officer Diller ripped that gun out of that individual’s hand.”
Detective Diller was with Sgt. Sasha Rosen and three other officers at 5:40 p.m. that March evening when they approached a 2016 Kia parked illegally on Mott Avenue in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens.
Sergeant Rosen had just seen Mr. Rivera and another man, Lindy Jones, come out of a store and get into the car. Mr. Rivera had an L-shaped object in the pocket of his sweatshirt that resembled a firearm, Mr. Zawistowski said.
Detective Diller repeatedly called for the men to roll down the window, and shouted for them to take their hands out of their pockets. Detective Diller opened the door of the passenger side, where Mr. Rivera was sitting.
Mr. Rivera could have surrendered, Mr. Zawistowski said.
Instead, “he chose violence,” Mr. Zawistowski said. In the fray after Detective Diller was shot, another officer returned fire and shot Mr. Rivera in the back.
Mr. Rivera’s lawyer, Erin Darcy of the Legal Aid Society, said that her client had fired an “unintentional discharge” during the chaos that followed the stop. Investigators searched for a motive but came up with “absolutely nothing,” she said.
“He did not intend to shoot and kill a police officer,” Ms. Darcy said.
Ms. Darcy said footage from the officers’ own body-worn cameras would show that Mr. Rivera’s firearm went off accidentally and not because he fired it.
Listening in the courtroom was the wife of Detective Diller, Stephanie Diller, who was surrounded by police officers who had filled the seats in the gallery.
Body-worn camera footage from officers who responded to the scene showed the frantic efforts to save Detective Diller’s life. Ms. Diller and other family members walked quickly out of the courtroom before the footage was shown.
Jurors watched three minutes of footage that showed officers surrounding Detective Diller, and then putting him in the back of a cruiser and racing to the emergency room of Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
Officers waited for hours at the hospital before learning that Detective Diller had died, according to testimony from Steven Mihalik, one of the officers who responded to the shooting.
Thousands of police officers attended Detective Diller’s funeral in Massapequa, N.Y., where he lived with Ms. Diller and their son, who is now 3.
The killing was swiftly condemned by elected officials in New York and across the country, including Donald J. Trump, who had won the Republican nomination for president and had used the spikes in crime that followed the pandemic to undermine Democrats.
He attended Detective Diller’s wake on Long Island and in 2025, after he won the election, Mr. Trump invited Ms. Diller to his first joint congressional address.
Mr. Rivera had 21 prior arrests and had been previously convicted of attempted assault and drug charges, according to police and corrections records.
After the shooting, investigators discovered a 9-millimeter pistol in the glove compartment of the Kia. Testifying on Tuesday, Officer Kayla McQuillan, who also responded to the crime scene on Mott Avenue, said officers also found a .38 caliber gun that was jammed and did not belong to the police.
Mr. Jones was charged with weapons possession and is scheduled to be tried separately.
Just before opening statements on Tuesday, about 75 officers stood outside Queens Criminal Court, where Patrick Hendry, the head of the police officers’ union, said Mr. Rivera should “be behind bars for the rest of his life.”
“This has been a long road for justice,” he said. “This individual is a cold-blooded killer.”
Maria Cramer is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and crime in the city and surrounding areas.
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