# violence
A former New York police officer has been charged in the death of his mother, who was found nearly decapitated in her Queens home last year.
Osvaldo Diaz, 46, "allegedly stabbed and slashed to death" his mother, Maria Diaz, 78, with a machete on Feb. 24, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said at a news conference Thursday.
"The defendant allegedly attacked his mother with a machete -- nearly decapitated," Katz said in a news release. "This act of violence has devastated the victim's family, which includes her six other children."
Diaz was employed by the New York Police Department from 2005 to 2008, when he was fired, the department said.
Diaz lived with his mother in an apartment above a beauty salon, the release said.
On the day of the killings, Diaz's sister was visiting their home because she and her mother planned to run errands and take a walk.
When she arrived and called her mother, there was no answer.
"Eventually, the accused picked up and allegedly told his sister to go to the store," Release said.