Grand Junction police fatally shot Patti Wilson, a transgender woman, firing into her fleeing car

On June 19, 2026, at about 6:30 p.m., two Grand Junction, Colorado police officers fatally shot Patti Wilson, a 31-year-old transgender woman, outside a Dairy Queen at Seventh Street and North Avenue. Officers had responded to multiple 911 callers reporting a person with a knife inside the restaurant, where Wilson had stabbed a customer during an escalating confrontation. According to the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, two officers confronted Wilson as she sat in a vehicle in the parking lot, and roughly eleven shots were fired, striking her twice as she was apparently driving away. Her car then crashed into several other vehicles west of the intersection at First Street and North Avenue, overturning one and injuring another person, before coming to a stop. Wilson was pronounced dead, and the Mesa County Coroner determined she died of two gunshot wounds.

Witnesses and local reporting described Wilson as a person in acute mental-health crisis who had long struggled with homelessness and had recently lost access to shuttered local crisis services. The Denver Police Department and many other agencies bar officers from firing into moving or fleeing vehicles because of the danger to bystanders, and community members questioned why Grand Junction officers fired toward a car that was moving away from them into busy traffic. Early police scanner traffic and media accounts misgendered Wilson; the Mesa County Coroner and local law enforcement later referred to her by her name and gender in compliance with Colorado law.

Updates

2026-07-02 - Grand Junction police identified the officers who fired [2, 3]

The Grand Junction Police Department identified the two officers who discharged their weapons as Zachary Diaz, a nine-year department veteran, and Tim Long, in law enforcement since 2019. Both were placed on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation, conducted separately from the criminal investigation by the 21st Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team.

2026-07-08 - Video surfaced showing an officer firing into Wilson's fleeing car [5, 4]

The Daily Sentinel obtained and published a video of the shooting that showed a Grand Junction officer firing toward North Avenue traffic as Wilson's car turned away from him, contradicting online claims that officers faced immediate danger; the department said it was aware of "several videos circulating" of the shooting and referred comment to the Mesa County Sheriff's Office. Colorado Times Recorder corroborated the footage a week later, reporting that the video showed no officer in apparent danger as Wilson's vehicle turned away from them.