JSO: 2 officers shoot, kill man attacking carjacking victim’s family member with butter knife

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A routine carjacking investigation quickly became a chaotic encounter Monday night that ended with two officers fatally shooting a man who had attacked someone, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

Police said they were called to investigate a carjacking in the area of Eaverson and Grothe streets around 8:40 p.m. Monday in the Durkeeville neighborhood.

An older woman had called 911 to report that her car had been stolen.

Officers were at the scene for about an hour meeting with the victim and trying to get information on the vehicle and the suspects. The woman’s family members were out on the street around the officers as they were interviewing her, police said.

During the interview with the carjacking victim, a man who had nothing to do with the carjacking walked up and started “harassing” the woman’s family. They told police they were familiar with the man from the neighborhood. He was later identified as 54-year-old Djuan Jackson.

“At some point, he pulled a knife and the officers hear the family members say ‘He’s got a knife!‘” JSO Director Mark Romano explained during a news conference.

Sheriff T.K. Waters said the incident shifted gears very quickly.

“The way the entire scenario took place it was very quick, a lot of confusion, a lot of noise,” Waters said. “(On the body camera,) you can hear someone yelling out, ‘He’s got a knife!’”

Waters said there were a lot of people outside when the scuffle broke out nearby on Grothe Street. He said when Officers J. Montgomery and J.C. Rose heard “knife,” they went around a vehicle and saw Jackson, who appeared to be stabbing one of the carjacking victim’s family members.

“And that’s when they took action,” Waters said.

Romano said Montgomery and Rose were able to “engage” Jackson and fired at him, “striking him, getting him off the person he was stabbing.”

Jackson suffered several gunshot wounds and died at the scene despite efforts from officers and rescue personnel, Romano said.

Romano explained that after Jackson was shot, the officers followed protocol and handcuffed him and that’s when an officer “was able to see the knife beside the suspect’s body and notices that it’s a butter knife.”

Romano said the officer had been so worried that the family member had been stabbed that he could be seen on the body camera video asking the man to take off his shirt to be sure he was not wounded.

The family member was not injured. No officers were injured in the encounter, either.

“It’s unfortunate that it worked out the way that it did. You don’t want this to happen, under any circumstance, but when officers see that kind of thing happen, they have to take action at some point and do what they have to do to try to save lives, and that’s what they did in that case,” Waters said.

JSO shared that Jackson had an arrest history that included aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault, domestic battery, and drug and gun charges.

Rose has been with JSO for five years, and Montgomery has been with JSO for two years. This was the first officer-involved shooting for both.

The State Attorney’s Office is conducting a separate investigation of the officer-involved shooting to determine if it was legally justifiable.

The carjacked vehicle was eventually recovered. The carjacking suspects, who are not connected to Jackson, are still being sought.

This is the sixth shooting involving JSO officers this year.