An autopsy report has shed additional light on the death of Dylan Noble, who was shot by Fresno police in June as he advanced on officers while hiding his hand under his shirt as if reaching for a weapon in a shooting captured on body cameras of the officers and partially on cameras of bystanders some distance away.

Noble was clearly drunk and possibly high on cocaine.

An autopsy report released Tuesday shed more light. Noble had a blood alcohol content of 0.12. Much higher than the legal limit of 0.01 for people underage. Toxicology also found traces of benzoylecgonine– the primary component of cocaine in his system.

The attorney for Noble’s mother said Noble was afraid of getting in trouble and so he yelled the words “I EXPLATIVE hate my life,” while walking towards officers.

“It doesn’t mean you wanna die, it means you are kind of caught in a bad situation. He’s pulled over, he’s facing officers, he’s thinking I’m going to get a DUI, and that might explain the comments,” said Stuart Chandler, attorney representing Dylan Noble’s mother.

Screaming, “I hate my f**king life!” while refusing to listen to police commands and reaching your hands into your waistband under your shirt is a recipe for one thing, and that is getting shot.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that maybe Noble:

1. should not have done cocaine.
2. should not have gotten really drunk
3. should have listened to lawful commands from officers before he got shot
4. after he got shot while standing, should have processed, “hey, maybe I should listen to these guys,” and
5. should not have reached towards his waistband while on the ground as officers yelled at him repeatedly not to do so.

The autopsy suggests that the police marksmanship in this instance was the normal level of horrible, with shots primarily hitting him low, suggesting officers were target fixated instead of focusing on their front sights (shooters looking over the sights at the target tend to drop their front sights, causing shots to go low).

Noble family attorney Stuart Noble is particularly irritated that Noble was shot again while down and facing away from officers.

“Could they really think that this young man can reach into his waistband after he’s already been hit, take aim at officers with guns trained on him– that’s preposterous,” said Chandler.

“Proposterous?”

Officers shot Noble because he kept reaching into his waistband as if going for a weapon, and nothing they had done, from verbal warnings to shooting him to the ground, had dissuaded him from doing so again.

Is it “preposterous” for officers to shoot someone so driven on reaching towards their waistband at the repeated, obvious risk to his own life?