Sheriff T.K. Waters, left, and Undersheriff Undersheriff Shawn Coarsey speak about three police officers who shot and killed a suspect. | News4Jax
Published on February 13, 2026 at 10:59 am
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Three Jacksonville police officers — working their first night on the job — shot and killed a man after a domestic disturbance, according to police.
Jose Cabrera, 62, was shot early Friday after officers demanded that he get out of his car, which was parked outside a home on Fox Tail Lane, and he grabbed a knife as he got out, Sheriff’s Office Undersheriff Shawn Coarsey said.
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“He came out of the vehicle and started aggressively approaching those officers, yelling something that they were going to have to shoot him,” Coarsey said during a news briefing early Friday.
This incident marked the second officer-involved shooting this week involving Sheriff’s Office officers. It was the fifth this year.
On Tuesday night, a man who had been spotted in a stolen vehicle before running from police was shot to death when he pulled out a handgun during a chase with officers.
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Coarsey said the latest incident began about 10:10 p.m. when officers received reports of a domestic disturbance.
Cabrera had already left the scene when officers arrived, but Coarsey said the officers were able to speak to his wife, who told them he had threatened her and told her something along the lines “that they were both to die that night.”
Officers were also able to speak to Cabrera on the phone. According to the Sheriff’s Office, he told officers “that he was not going to go back to prison and they were going to have to kill him.”
Coarsey said Cabrera’s wife told officers he had probably gone to a family member’s house, located on Fox Tail Lane.
That’s when those officers coordinated with officers who were in the Dinsmore area and went to the home on Fox Tail Lane about 12:30 a.m.
When police arrived, the officers saw Cabrera’s car and approached him.
“When they walked up to that vehicle, that suspect was sitting in the car, they started talking to him, briefly asked him to exit the vehicle,” Corasey said.
Cabrera grabbed a knife and acted “aggressively” toward officers as he was getting out of the car, the Sheriff’s Office said.
“He kept advancing on them, and they fired several times,” Corasey said.
Cabrera was taken into custody and transported to a hospital, where he died.
The three officers involved were new to the job, and this was their first night out on their own, Coarsey said.
The three officers were identified as W. Morris, G. Griffis and R. Rhoden. The Sheriff’s Office did not provide their first names. None of the officers was hurt.
Sheriff T.K. Waters said the officers’ experience level had nothing to do with their response. The officers were “very well trained” and responded as they did because they saw the same threat, Water said.
“When you are advancing toward a police officer holding a knife, the result is going to end up pretty much like this,” Waters said. “It’s concerning of course, when we run into these types of situations, but they are trained professionals to take care of themselves, take care of the community, and they’re going to do just that.”
This story was produced by News4Jax, a Jacksonville Today news partner.
