Graphic video shows Fresno police shooting and killing an unarmed 19-year-old

By Charles Pulliam-Moore  |  July 7, 2016 | 8:55pm
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New witness footage has surfaced of the fatal June 25 shooting of Dylan Noble, the unarmed 19-year-old who was pulled over by two Fresno police officers. In the video, obtained by the Fresno Bee, Noble can be seen lying face-up on the ground by his pickup truck with his arm in the air saying, “I’ve been shot” before an officer fires another bullet.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Fresno PD came to the scene that afternoon in response to a call about a man in camouflage walking around with a rifle. They arrived to find Noble speeding off nearby in his pickup truck, who refused to stop driving for about half a mile before Noble pulled into a nearby Chevron gas station.

Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer told the Bee that Noble did not respond to multiple requests from officers to show his hands before stepping out of his vehicle. According to Lt. Burke Farrah, the officers then ordered him to the ground and to show them his hands. Instead, Noble placed one hand behind his back and then into his waistband before walking “toward officers very rapidly,” at which point they opened fire.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Farrah explained, it was determined that Noble was not armed and no weapons were found in his truck. Police have not announced a connection between Noble and the man described in the 911 call.

Warning: video depicts graphic images

While the early moments of the shooting were not recorded on the cellphone footage currently making the rounds (which only captures two of the four shots fired at Noble), Dyer says that unreleased footage from the officers’ body cameras make it clear that they both feared for their lives when they shot Noble. Both officers, Dyer said, have been placed on leave.

“When he gets within about 12 feet of the officers, he makes the statement ‘I hate my effing life’ and then he quickly starts to pull his hand out when the officer fires two rounds and shoots him,” Dyer told KFSN news. “That happened twice, where he deliberately raised his shirt with the left hand and reached with his right hand underneath his shirt into the waistband. The officers, at that point, believed he was trying to retrieve a firearm and they fired.”

In the witness video, Noble is on the ground after being shot twice, with two officers training their weapons on him. One can be heard shouting, “Keep your hands up!” before one shot is fired. A third officer approaches the scene, and moments later, the fourth and final shot is fired.

Warren Paboojian and Stuart Chandler, lawyers representing Noble’s family, have called for an independent investigation into the shooting.

“Even though we have the utmost confidence in the District Attorney’s Office in regard to this investigation, we are asking for an outside, independent investigation,” they wrote in a letter to Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp.

In the days since Noble’s shooting, his Facebook page has been memorialized and his friends and family have organized public vigils both to mourn the teen’s death and the protest the police department. On June 27, motorcyclists and people in trucks drove up and down the road in front of the Chevron where Noble died to celebrate his memory.

The protest, while generally peaceful, reportedly disrupted traffic as groups took to the streets, and confronted police while carrying a Confederate flag and chanting “white lives matter.”

 
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