Family of immigrant killed by Charlotte police raising money to ship body to home

The family of a Ukrainian man fatally shot by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer last week is trying to raise money to have the body shipped more than 5,000 miles back to their hometown of Kiev, Ukraine, for a funeral.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officials say Iaroslav Mosiiuk, 25, pointed a rifle at a police officer in the seconds before he was shot and killed. It happened just before 1 p.m. on March 8, when two officers responded to a potential suicide threat in the 1000 block of Justice Avenue, near Statesville and Atando avenues.

A GoFundMe page seeks to raise $15,000 to transport Mosiiuk’s body back to his home country of Ukraine. As of Monday, the page had raised $5,610.

“He was a wonderful son, bother and a greatest friend anyone could ever ask for,” said Olesya Mosiyuk Tabaka, who is listed as creating the GoFundMe campaign. “He was the life of the party with a huge kind heart. There was not a person he would not help, he was incredibly smart.”

Andrey Illarionov, who donated to the GoFundMe page, said Iaroslav “had a good heart and was very friendly.”

“I would never thought his life would end like this,” Illarionov said in a post on the GoFundMe page.

Police said Mosiiuk was holding a hunting rifle when officers encountered him and he was shot outside the home after an officer perceived an “imminent threat” from Mosiiuk’s rifle, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said Wednesday.

Mosiiuk was taken to Carolinas Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

It is unclear how long Mosuiik had lived in the United States. He was living with a sibling in Charlotte at the time of his death. He was also known by the first name Yaroslav to some family members.

Neighbors described Moissuk as a friendly person, who was often seen working on his car and willing to help others. He was new to the neighborhood, having recently moved in with his sister, but was not known for displaying erratic or abnormal behavior, neighbors told the Observer.

Police identified the officer who shot Mosiiuk as Officer Brian Walsh.

Walsh is on administrative leave, which is standard protocol. He has been an officer with the department since 2002. CMPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau is conducting a separate but parallel investigation to determine whether procedures and policies were followed.

Mosiiuk’s death was the ninth fatal CMPD shooting since January 2015.

This story was originally published March 13, 2017 at 12:55 PM with the headline "Family of immigrant killed by Charlotte police raising money to ship body to home."