Simon Hunter
A NATIONAL POLICE officer who died in Jaen on Sunday while attending a disagreement between neighbours was accidentally shot by a colleague and not stabbed by a man brandishing a knife, as was initially reported.
Juan Jose Lara, aged 40, received a bullet wound in the abdomen when he and a fellow officer attended the disturbance in the municipality of Andujar.
A video of the full sequence of events shows the aggressor, who was later shot dead by police, brandishing a knife and a hammer outside a neighbour’s apartment.
The National Police officers arrive and one officer is attacked by the suspect. He fires his weapon, at which point in the video Lara is seen at a distance suddenly clutching his body, whirling around and falling to the floor.
Initial press reports suggested that Lara had been stabbed by the suspect, but the police are now working under the hypothesis that the wound was caused by a shot from his fellow officer. An autopsy and ballistic reports will be used to clarify exactly what happened, according to a report in Spanish daily El Pais.
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