Doug Stanglin

USA TODAY

Fresno police released an "extremely disturbing" body cam video of officers fatally shooting an unarmed 19-year-old white man who appears to refuse repeated sharp commands to drop to the ground and hold his hands up.

Dylan Noble was shot and killed June 25. Fresno police chief Jerry Dyer intended to release the video last Friday, but decided to postpone it in the wake of two police-involved shootings last week and a gunman's rampage in Dallas that left five police officers dead just a day before.

In releasing the video Wednesday evening, Dyer called the footage “extremely disturbing” to watch, but said he hoped it would help clarify the circumstances at the time of the incident and why police opened fire.

Video surfaces showing Fresno, Calif., police shooting



“I anticipate that some of this video will answer many of the questions out there in this community,” Dyer said, the Los Angeles Times reports. “However, I believe this video is also going to raise questions in the minds of people, just as those questions exist in my mind as well.”

He said he prays it won’t spark violence amid simmering anti-police sentiment in Fresno and elsewhere, the Associated Press reported. “Tensions are high,” Dyer said. “In some cases we are one spark away from a forest fire. And I pray this video doesn’t serve as that spark … This is not a time to become violent.”

The footage shows a police officer driving up to the scene of a traffic stop, stepping out of his squad car with his weapon drawn and pointing toward the truck where Noble is sitting behind the wheel. The officer repeatedly orders Noble to show his hands.

Noble eventually leaves the vehicle, retreating briefly, but refusing to comply with a series of demands that he drop to the ground, raise his hands or show his hands.

He then turns, walks toward the officers, and reaches behind his back with his right hand, which appears to hold an object that, Dyer said, officers believed could be a weapon.

At one point, Noble can be heard saying that he hates his life.

As Noble advances, one police officer fires at him twice, dropping him to the ground. An officer again orders Noble, now on his back on the ground, to hold his hands up, but he appears instead to move his hand under his shirt. The officer fires one more time, and, 12 seconds later, another officer fires a fourth shot into Noble.

The object turns out to be a small plastic box.

“This in no way is a clear-cut exoneration of the officers. The videos raise questions about shooting,” said Peter Bibring, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Times reports. Bibring applauded the chief for releasing the video.

The video was shown last week to Noble’s father and stepfather. His mother is seeking damages from the city for her son’s death.

The mother’s attorney, Stuart Chandler, put out a statement saying that he urged the police chief to release the video Wednesday. “We are pleased to discover from the media that Chief Dyer is belatedly providing the body camera footage to the general public,” Chandler said.

The shooting prompted a protest in front of the Fresno County Jail on Wednesday by more than a hundred demonstrators, including Black Lives Matter, the activist group that has organized numerous protests in cities nationally in the wake of the police-involved killings of blacks. A larger demonstration took place on Saturday in Fresno, a city of 520,000 people.