[Police1] SILER CITY, N.C. — A motorist had a gun in his hand as he stepped out of a pickup truck during a traffic stop for not wearing a seat belt and was fatally shot by a North Carolina state trooper, a video released Tuesday by the State Highway Patrol showed.Trooper Rodney Cook, a 16-year veteran of the patrol, shot and killed Mark Anthony Diaz, 21, of Staley, on May 30. The video was released after a judge signed a petition filed at the request of the patrol.
"Sarge, he pulled a gun on me," Cook said to a supervisor who arrived moments after the shooting. "Freaking seat belt violation." Shortly after that comment, the sound on the video is muted. Diaz didn’t fire a shot before he was hit, the video showed.
Cook has been placed on routine administrative duty during an internal investigation, the Highway Patrol said last week.