Guy Rivera Trial Opens in NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller Shooting Death

Stephanie Diller wept and then walked out of a Queens Supreme Court courtroom before body camera footage of her husband's final moments could be played, as prosecutors delivered a graphic account of how Officer Jonathan Diller died on a Far Rockaway street on March 25, 2024.

The trial of Guy Rivera, 35, opened with nearly 100 officers packing the gallery and filling two overflow rooms in a show of solidarity, several of them tearing up as Assistant District Attorney Ken Zawistowski laid out the prosecution's case against a man he described as having pulled a gun on a cop conducting a routine check of a suspicious vehicle parked outside a T-Mobile store.

"He took out his gun and pointed it at officer Diller," Zawistowski told jurors in his opening statement. Rivera allegedly fired three rounds, striking Diller in the stomach. The wound was catastrophic: "He shot officer Diller underneath his bulletproof vest, causing his intestines to be ripped through and causing his iliac artery to be severed — one of the body's most vital arteries," Zawistowski continued. "The bullet ripped through his abdomen and, in the last moments of his life, he ripped the gun from the killer's hands."

The bodycam footage shown in court captured officers desperately attempting to revive Diller in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Stephanie Diller, surrounded by uniformed officers in the gallery, broke down before that footage was played and left the courtroom. The trial is expected to run approximately three weeks.

Rivera, charged with first-degree murder of a police officer, attempted murder of his partner Sgt. Sasha Rosen, and criminal possession of a weapon, pleaded not guilty. Mayor Eric Adams had described Rivera as having 21 prior arrests at the time of the shooting. The driver of the vehicle, Lindy Jones, faces separate weapons charges; she had 14 prior arrests and was out on bail for a prior weapons offense when Diller was killed.

Diller's death on March 25, 2024, was the first killing of an NYPD officer in the line of duty since January 2022, when two officers were shot responding to a domestic disturbance in a Harlem apartment building. His funeral drew thousands, and NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban assigned Diller's family the shield number 110, a reference to his young son's birthday. Rivera, who was shot at the scene by Diller's partner and hospitalized before being charged, was arraigned in Queens on May 7, 2024.

The lengths of the criminal records belonging to Rivera and Jones ignited wider debate in New York City about policies on bail and repeat offenders. That debate now has a Queens courtroom as its backdrop, with Diller's widow and a sea of blue watching every word of testimony.