Update: Jan 30, 5:50 a.m.: Attorney: Increased Crime Made Client Wary
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Lilburn police detectives continue to investigate a Saturday shooting on Hillcrest Road that resulted in the city's first homicide since 2005.
In the incident, 22-year-old Rodrigo Diaz, of Duluth, was shot in the driveway of 537 Hillcrest Road in Lilburn. Diaz was transported to Gwinnett Medical Center, where he later died from his injuries.
He had been shot in the left side of his head with a .22-caliber revolver, according to police. He was pronounced dead at 6:10 a.m. on Jan. 27, while in the intensive care unit.
He reportedly believed that someone was trying to enter his home unannounced.
According to a report released to Patch Tuesday, Diaz was driving with three friends when he arrived to Sailors' home on Saturday evening.
According to the victim's brother, David E. Diaz Valencia, the friends were trying to find the home of a friend of Diaz's girlfriend when they pulled into the wrong driveway by mistake.
In the police report, the friends said they were planning to go skating later that night.
'Trouble Unknown'
Earlier in the evening, about 8 p.m., the girlfriend's father said he spoke with his daughter, who stated that she was on her way home. He did not know that the friends were headed out elsewhere, according to the report.
After friends pulled into Sailors' driveway, police were dispatched to the scene for "trouble unknown" just after 10 p.m.
While enroute, a complainant told emergency dispatchers that a car was in her yard, that people were shouting, and that two gun shots were heard.
Another witness told police that a male subject was overheard yelling "why was someone trying to get inside their house."
According to Valencia, the GPS directed the friends to the wrong house. And, then Sailors started shooting; as Diaz accelerated out of the driveway, he was shot in the head, Valencia said.
"My brother had rolled down the window to apologize,” Valencia said, or the bullet might not have done so much damage.
When police arrived, they observed a woman screaming next to the stopped red Mitsubishi 3000GT, pointed east and driven by Diaz, at the end of the home's driveway.
The driver was slumped over in the driver's seat, with blood covering his face. His breathing was labored, and he was unresponsive.
A female witness, who was later identified as the victim's girlfriend , was "screaming frantically (that) her boyfriend had been shot." Two other friends were standing behind the vehicle.
Sailors then "made a spontaneous utterance that he shot the driver," the police report states.
Diaz's Family Life
According to Valencia, Diaz was one of four brothers and two sisters. Most are living in the Duluth or metro Atlanta area.
He lived with his father, Rodrigo Abad Diaz Diaz; stepmother, Blanca P. Villegas Torres; brother David and younger sister in a home on Pittard Road in Duluth.
The family is originally from Colombia. The father has lived in Duluth for 10 years. Several other family members came to Duluth about seven years ago.
Diaz was studying auto mechanics at Gwinnett Tech, after changing majors from computer programming, according to his brother.
Valencia, whom Patch spoke to Tuesday, said funeral arrangements have not been made yet.
Lilburn Police Chief Bruce Hedley said the incident "was an unfortunate and tragic event" for all involved.
Snellville attorney Mike Puglise, who is representing Sailors, could not be reached for comment.
The last time a person was killed in the city of Lilburn was in 2005 on Inland Way. In that case, a Eunice Castillo, 38, chased down and shot her boyfriend, 43-year-old Keith Newell Boyd. She then turned the gun on herself in apparent murder-suicide.
Patch will follow up on this story as more information becomes available.
--- Duluth Patch Editor Faye Edmundson contributed to this article.
(Editor's Note: This story has been amended from its original version.)
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You keep using that word "racist" and it doesn't mean what you think it means.
More than likely you will be the sad, old man who has killed someone due to your own stupidity.
Check. Mate.
Ask three non-uniform cops in Toccoa that tried to stop a preacher at a quiki-mart, just to ask him a question, preacher though he was being robbed hit the gas, cop said the car lunged at him so they shot him three times and killed him. Not to mention countless other cop dash video I've seen. Apperars to be SOP for the cops and they went to school for this stuff.
According to Dr. Gary Kleck, criminologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee and author of "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America," a book used by many in the gun debate, 800,000-2,500,000 crimes are stopped by guns each year. The numbers are from different studies. Interesting Statistics: There were over 19,000 deaths by accidental drug overdose in 2004. The majority of these deaths were from prescription drugs, not illegal drugs. Banning prescription drugs makes as much sense as banning guns. Regarding accidental shooting deaths per year, that number is in the 14,000-17,000 range. Over 300,000,000 guns are owned in America. I showed you mine, now show me your's.....
Thoroughly debunked years ago, the gun lobby’s favorite research – a 1995 study by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz that reported an astounding 2.5 million defense gun uses (DGU) each year in the United States. Yep, you read it right; 2.5 million DGUs PER YEAR! The Kleck study claims that 2.5 million times per year, someone uses a gun to defend themselves. That’s more defensive gun uses than happened in WWII in Europe in 1944. The Kleck study is so flawed the only thing it measures is the wild imagination of gun owners. Do you still believe? check.
a sudden forward thrust of the body, typically with an arm outstretched to attack someone or seize something: verb make a lunge: A car is not going to lunge. just saying.
I lol'd at you claim that there were less DGU in WWII, .Between 50-78 million people died in WWII. 22-25 million were military, I can promise you that the 8,7 million Russian soldiers that died, tried to use their gun. There where at least 5 million Jewish men and women that would have fought back had their guns not been confiscated by Hitler a few year priors. America also got to fight that war overseas, because both Germany and Japan knew an invasion of the US was pointless. "A gun in every second home, behind every tree" No I don't believe this anti-gun non-sense because the numbers DO NOT JUSTIFY IT! At 32,000 gun related deaths, more people died from the FLU! : Breakdown of those 32K gun deaths both criminal and accidental about 9,000 are gun murders, 600 are accidental gun deaths, but surprise the bulk of those "gun deaths" are suicides and I'm sure your all about the right to choose! I'm not saying your not entitled to your point, it's just a pointless matter. There is nothing you can do about guns in the US, or drugs, illegals, prostitution, alcohol, abortion. These thing are either a part of human nature or American culture, get over it! Want to make something popular? Make it illegal!
: to thrust or propel
It's far more likely that after 69 year Mr. Sailors has made a mistake, over reacted and now will owe a debt to society and a family. Then your point of him being a "racist grumpy cold blooded old man" and your right, God will be the final judge. Let’s seek truth and justice, not hearsay and vengeance.