Jensen La Vende

Rel­a­tives of Ab­ba Di­az, 24, who was shot and killed by po­lice last Thurs­day, said yes­ter­day that he was as­sas­si­nat­ed by the po­lice and they are call­ing for jus­tice with re­gard to his killing.Speak­ing at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, Di­az's broth­er Az­izi told jour­nal­ists that po­lice had ex­e­cut­ed his broth­er. Di­az's girl­friend Michelle Pi­ango said an eye­wit­ness told the fam­i­ly that po­lice shot at the crashed ve­hi­cle with Di­az and two oth­er men trapped in­side.

The two oth­er men have been iden­ti­fied as Chris­t­ian Ash­by, who was al­so killed dur­ing the al­leged shootout with the po­lice, and an­oth­er man iden­ti­fied on­ly as "Gun­ta" who is cur­rent­ly on the run from the po­lice.North-East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force of­fi­cers said they were on mo­bile pa­trol along Sad­dle Road, San­ta Cruz, when they were told of a house­break­ing at Fran­cis Street, around 3.45 am. When they ar­rived they saw a gold-coloured Toy­ota Corol­la with three oc­cu­pants act­ing sus­pi­cious­ly.

The po­lice tried to stop them but they sped off, shoot­ing at the po­lice who shot back. The car ran off the road near the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) pump­ing sta­tion near Jag­gan Vil­lage. The men re­port­ed­ly con­tin­ued shoot­ing at the po­lice, who re­turned fire, fa­tal­ly hit­ting Di­az and Ash­by, while the third man es­caped.Po­lice said they re­cov­ered two loaded il­le­gal firearms from the dead men.Di­az's aunt Lucy Lara-O'Bri­an told re­porters that her nephew was a very re­spect­ful man who did odd jobs.

"At the end of the day it is life. We wouldn't get on. We just hum­ble, we have to take life as it come," she said but added, "It un­fair for po­lice to just kill you."She said her nephew was dead be­cause he fol­lowed bad com­pa­ny.For this year, 29 peo­ple have been killed by po­lice, with 19 of those cas­es be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty.