Police officer shoots carjacking suspect dead during attack in Quito, Ecuador.
NEWS:
A police officer fatally shot a man during an attempted carjacking in Cotocollao, northern Quito, Ecuador, on the night of May 19, 2026.
The attack occurred at about 10 p.m. near the intersection of Sabanillas and Juan Domingo streets.
Security camera footage published with this article records the attempted robbery and shooting. A red car is parked along the street with its driver inside when three men approach and surround the vehicle.
The men converge on the driver's side of the car. The footage shows one of them striking and damaging the driver's window while attempting to gain access to the vehicle.
Police said the group was armed and was attempting to steal the car while assaulting its driver.
The driver was himself a police officer. Subsequent information from police officials identified him as an officer belonging to the National Police's directive level.
The security footage shows the confrontation developing within seconds. As the men crowd the driver's side and one attempts to enter through the damaged window, a gunshot is heard.
One of the men immediately falls beside the car.
The other two run from the scene.
A second red vehicle can be seen positioned near the corner. Contemporary accounts described it as a vehicle waiting for the group to escape.
The video directly establishes the three men's approach to the car, the attack on the vehicle, the attempt to access the driver's side, the gunshot, one man's collapse and the flight of the other two men.
The recording does not independently establish whether each of the three men was carrying a firearm. Police specifically described the suspects as armed.
The man who was shot died at the scene. Police identified him as Diego P.
According to the National Police, Diego P. had previous records involving robbery and illicit trafficking of controlled substances.
Police classified the officer's shooting as a legitimate use of force, saying he acted in response to an imminent threat while the group was attacking the vehicle and its occupant.
The initial official statement did not provide the name of the officer who fired the fatal shot.
Further details released later on May 20 clarified that the officer was inside his own vehicle when the three men approached. Police officials said he drew his service weapon and fired after the attackers broke the driver's window.
The two remaining men escaped after the shooting. No reliable later public information located for this report established that either fleeing suspect was subsequently arrested.
The incident was one of two fatal police interventions involving suspected robberies in Quito within several hours. In a separate case in La Michelena in southern Quito early on May 20, another police officer intervened during a reported burglary at an appliance store and fatally shot one suspect after authorities said members of that group opened fire.
Police officials said after the two incidents that the officers involved would pass through the procedures used to review fatal uses of force.
That process can include temporary retention of the officer, collection of the firearm and other physical evidence, witness statements, ballistic examinations, review of available video and a flagrancy hearing to determine the officer's legal status.
A later update on June 14 provided a specific outcome for the Cotocollao officer.
A spokesperson for the National Police's Department of Institutional Sponsorship and Defense said authorities determined that the Cotocollao shooting constituted legitimate use of force and that it was not necessary to open a criminal case against the officer.
The same police representative said an officer's use of lethal force is evaluated according to the circumstances confronting the officer at the moment of the incident, including the nature and immediacy of the threat.
The police's initial account and the security video align on the central physical sequence: three men surround the occupied vehicle, the driver's side is attacked, a shot is fired from inside the confrontation, one man collapses and the other two flee.
The footage does not establish the identities of the two men who escaped or what happened to them after they left the camera's view.
No reliable later public record located for this report established their arrests or prosecution in connection with the attempted carjacking.
News story written by DarkGore.
For more on this case:
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