Police Shootings Add Momentum to Fresno Activism

Even though Fresno is a city similar in size to Oakland, people rarely take to the streets in large groups to protest police shootings.

“This is a very conservative town,” says community organizer Taymah Jahsi. But, she says, things may be changing.

“We’ve been under that conservative cloud for quite some time and I think people are ready to be a little bit more progressive, and that is why they are putting some action behind the words."

Protests have taken place in Fresno almost every day this week. One march had more than 500 people. That’s unprecedented here.

Many of the protesters held up Black Lives Matter signs. But Jahsi, who is African-American, says the issue with police accountability extends beyond black lives here.

“Although black lives suffer at a more disproportionate rate, the issue in Fresno is inclusive of all races,” Jahsi says. “The perception is there’s no accountability for taking the lives of unarmed citizens. We’d like to change that.”

Last year, Freddy Centeno, an unarmed mentally ill Latino man, was shot by police seven times. Centeno, 40, was in a coma for 23 days before he died. The city's Office of Independent Review said police were justified because Centeno reached for a black spray nozzle in his pocket that they thought was a gun. But Centeno’s family disagrees. They filed a lawsuit against two police officers and the city.

Officers also thought Dylan Noble, a white 19-year-old, had a gun when they shot him last month during a traffic stop. It turned out he was unarmed.

In an unusual move, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer released body-cam footage of the shooting this week even though the investigation is ongoing.

“I’d like to warn you that this video is graphic, as is any video of a shooting,” he said, before playing the video at a press conference.

The officers were out on a call looking for a man with a rifle, but they turned their attention to Noble’s truck when his tires screeched at a traffic light. Noble did not pull over immediately, raising officers’ suspicions.

The footage shows Noble ignoring several commands to put his hands up and stand still. He had one hand behind his back as he walked toward police. An officer shot him twice.

As Noble was lying on the ground, officers told him to keep his hands up. When he moved his arms toward his waistband, officers fired again, twice.

At the press conference, Dyer acknowledged the video would raise questions.

“Just as those questions exist in my mind as well,” he says. “Primarily, were the last two rounds fired by the officers necessary? Based on a reasonable fear, did the officers have to use deadly force?”

“I do not have an answer for that today,” he says.

Dyer acknowledged that tensions in Fresno and nationwide are high. "And in some cases, we are one spark away from a forest fire and I am praying that this video doesn’t serve as that spark in our community."

The FBI, the Police Department’s internal affairs unit and the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office are all investigating the shooting.

After watching the video, Noble’s family filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging that the shooting was "an inexcusable use of excessive force."

San Francisco attorney Arturo Gonzalez has filed five lawsuits against the Fresno Police Department on behalf of families whose relatives were shot by the police.

"I don’t think Chief Dyer likes to hold these repeated press conferences after officer-involved shootings," says Gonzalez. "I do not think that he enjoys that. But what he has to do, what he has to do at some point is to impose discipline when officers use excessive force."

Gonzalez hired a former Los Angeles sheriff's lieutenant to review Fresno’s officer-involved shootings, and found that over nine years, there were 87 incidents.

Robert Weisberg, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, says those numbers could raise red flags, but he adds, Jerry Dyer is one of the most widely respected police chiefs in the state.

"This is certainly not a chief who is insensitive to the need to train and monitor police in all the ways that reformers are calling for," Weisberg says.

Although Fresno has not typically been at the center of reform protests statewide, there are many local activists who have been working on police accountability issues for decades, especially in the city’s relatively small African-American community.

Take the Rev. Floyd Harris. He’s been speaking out against police brutality for 26 years.

"Here in California from the Bay Area to L.A., we cannot forget about the small cities like Fresno," he says.

He says he’s heartened by the recent activity. But he’s also surprised.

"It’s sad that it takes a life to bring people together at the mass level that you’ve just seen this past week here in Fresno," says Harris.

"I wonder if it’s because Dylan was a white young man that really sparked his community to come out, when we’ve been dealing with the same type of issue for many, many years."