MANCHESTER, NH – Gil Diaz, after handing a man a child car seat and a brief conversation with him on Orange Street last weekend, shot the man in the leg, according to court documents.
Then at the police station, Diaz, 26, homeless, tried to get at a razor blade he had in his coin pocket and only stopped trying after Officer George Morales forced him to the floor and punched him twice in the face. At the time, Diaz wasn’t handcuffed because police had asked him to put on a jumpsuit because they wanted to place his clothing into evidence.
He refused to remove his clothes.
Diaz is charged with first-degree assault; falsifying physical evidence; unsworn falsification; resisting arrest/detention, and felon in possession of a dangerous weapon.
On Monday, in filings in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District, Diaz agreed to be held in preventive detention (without bail) pending trial.
“MRP,” the man who was stabbed in the left leg, was uncooperative in the investigation, police said.
The incident began about 5:30 p.m. Saturday when police were sent to 140 Orange St. for a report of a shooting. As Officer Markus Watson was en route, dispatch reported a man had been shot in the leg.
According to his sworn affidavit, Watson arrived to see a wounded man, identified in court documents only by the initials MRP, on the ground in front of 146 Orange St. He was being treated for a gunshot wound by other officers.
A witness, identified by the initials AP who lives at 140 Orange St., told Watson he was sitting on a side porch when he heard a bang and moments later saw a white or Hispanic man walk by him nonchalantly headed north between the houses. The man had a white bandanna hanging out of his right back pocket.
AP ran towards Orange Street where he saw the man who appeared to be shot in the leg. AP told Watson there are cameras and a man on the second floor of his building has access to the footage.
As Watson was speaking with AP, Watson wrote that MRP was refusing to follow orders to get onto the stretcher. “I want my fucking phone!” MRP kept shouting, according to Watson. Eventually, MRP was put on a stretcher and taken to the Elliot Hospital for treatment.
Officers stopped Diaz at Chestnut and Prospect streets. Investigators obtained video footage from the neighborhood that recorded the incident and Diaz.
Watson reviewed the video and wrote that one recording showed MRP walking from the south side of Orange Street to the north side of the street to meet Diaz, who came out of 140 Orange St. Diaz walks to the sidewalk with a child car seat and hands it to MRP. After, there appears to be a brief conversation, during which Diaz pulls out a firearm and fires one round into MRP’s left leg, according to Watson’s affidavit.
At the police station, Diaz allegedly gave police the false name of Alan Diaz.
Police ran a criminal history check on Diaz and learned he had multiple aliases, including Alan Diaz. His criminal history in New York included criminal possession of a weapon, third felony. Police said Diaz continued to be uncooperative in the booking process and signed his property sheet form under the name Alan Diaz.
