Dylan Noble shooting: New video emerges of police killing unarmed teenager
Warning: video contains graphic content
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Your support makes all the difference.New footage shows police in California killing an unarmed teenager during a traffic stop, shooting two bullets when he was already lying on the ground.
The police video has revealed the moment when the 19-year-old was told to get out the car in Fresno on 25 June.
Mr Noble can be seen walking away from the vehicle, turning his back to police officers and walking towards them again, holding up his hands.
He apparently said that he “hated his life” during the incident.
When the teenager, who is white, puts one hand in his back pocket, police shoot him four times, including twice when he has already been hit and is lying on the ground.
Police say they believed Mr Noble was armed, and reported they saw him grasping something from the glove box of his car.
Fresno police chief Jerry Dyer said that one of the officers told the investigators that “he thought Noble was either taunting him or was practicing pulling out a gun".
After the victim fell to the ground, an officer fired a third round at him as he was reaching under his shirt with his left hand and into his waistband.
A second officer shot him a fourth time when he was reaching into his waistband again, which is out of sight in the video, according to Mr Dyer.
It was later determined that the victim was unarmed.
Mr Noble’s mother, Veronica Nelson, and father, Darren Noble, have filed a wrongful-death claim against the department. A criminal and an internal affairs investigation is underway.
“I’m outraged that the police would shoot my son and say it was his fault,” Ms Nelson said, as reported by the Fresno Bee. “To say he was suicidal, to say he was unhappy, if you knew my son, you would know it was lies.”
The video has been released amid heightened scrutiny and a US Justice Department investigation of policing across the country and the fact that at least two black people are killed every week by law enforcement.
The latest high profile deaths were of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota.
The deaths triggered protests around the country. A 25-year-old, who was not affiliated to the protest, gunned down five white police officers and wounded six more in Dallas.
President Barack Obama addressed the nation after the Dallas police shootings, saying the US is “not even close” to bridging the divide between the police and the communities they are employed to protect.
“We flood communities with so many guns that it’s easier for a teenager to get their hands on a glock than a computer or a book,” he said.
“Then we tell the police: you’re the social worker, you’re the teacher, you’re the parent, you’re the drug councillor.”
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