Earlier tonight, a video of the shooting of Dylan Noble by the Fresno police surfaced. This video, which apparently was recorded by a witness to the shooting, shows the final two shots of four total fired at Noble.
Noble can be seen on the video, which was released by the Fresno Bee, lying on the ground and raising his arms prior to being shot. In addition, there is a significant pause of fourteen seconds between the first shot on the video (presumably the third out of the four total shots) and the fatal shot at the end.
Previously, the Fresno Police Department had refused to release the bodycam video of the shooting, citing the oft-used excuse of it being part of an ongoing investigation to justify not doing so.
This video certainly creates plenty of insight and clarity into why Chief Dyer would want to keep the video under wraps as long as possible.
The video is described by the Fresno Bee:
Lying on the ground beside his pickup, 19-year-old Dylan Noble has already been shot twice, but is still alive when a Fresno police officer fires a shot toward him. Fourteen seconds later, another shot rings out, according to a video of the fatal incident obtained Wednesday by The Bee.
Police Chief Jerry Dyer said Wednesday that officers believed Noble was about to shoot them during the deadly encounter June 25. But officers later learned that Noble was unarmed.
The video, shot by a witness and showing only the last two of four shots fired by officers, surfaced on the day Noble’s family and friends held a private funeral for him in Clovis and the family’s lawyers released a letter asking for an outside law enforcement agency such as the FBI or the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate the shooting.
Dyer said the FBI has already agreed to investigate the shooting. He also said the video given to The Bee does not give a full account of why the officers felt threatened and were forced to shoot Noble.
The witness’s video is only 26 seconds long. It shows two officers barking commands at Noble, such as “Show us your hands” and “Get your hands up.”
An officer then fires toward Noble as he lies face up, his head closest to the officers.
The officers continue to yell at Dylan, who appears to be moving his hands.
Noble tells the officers: “I’ve been shot.”
After a long pause, an officer shoots again. The video then shows Noble moving his hands upward.
Dyer said the two officers shot Noble four times. The video shows the final two shots, he said.
Below is the previously unknown video, via Fresno People’s Media on Facebook:
The original justification for Dylan Noble’s shooting was that they believed he was armed and that he made “suicidal statements” while rushing at the officers. Therefore, they were in “fear for their lives,” another go-to excuse for police.
The fact he was clearly unarmed and already laying on the ground having been shot twice before they finished executing him with the two shots shown on this new video, pretty clearly shows he was no threat to those officers, regardless of what happened prior to that. It’s pretty hard, if not impossible, not to make a case for this as outright and intentional murder.
At best this would be a case of “contempt of cop,” based on their statements that he wasn’t following their orders. In spite of that, this video pretty clearly shows that he was not in any realistic way a threat to them at the time that they killed him.
Kelly is a lifelong resident of Las Vegas, who’s been very active in local grassroots activism, as well as on a national level during his extensive travels. He’s also the founder/main contributor of Nevada Cop Block, served as editor/contributor at CopBlock.org and designed the Official Cop Block Press Passes.
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My blood always boils with unjustified police killings, but I think this one was fair. This person was warned multiple times, saw that guns were drawn, and had to have been aware that a cop with a gun drawn is a very dangerous situation. Despite this, he continued to reach for his waist band, put his hands behind his back, and not get down on the ground.
I feel that police have too much power and that they are far too eager to shoot. In this specific case, however, it seemed reasonable for them to do what they did.