Fresno police officer shoots and kills woman charging at him with knife
An officer with the Fresno Police Department has been involved in a shooting that left one woman dead near downtown Fresno.
At around 9 a.m. on Saturday, police responded to a home in the area of Stanislaus St and B St after receiving a call from a man screaming "she's going to kill me."
The phone was then disconnected in the middle of that 911 call.
When officers arrived, a husband told them that his wife was armed with a knife in a bedroom upstairs and was making comments about killing herself, according to Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer.
Officers made their way upstairs on a narrow staircase and tried to get her to come out of the bedroom.
Dyer says that an officer then opened the door and saw her armed with large ax, she then started to charge towards the door.
The officer then closed the door and made a call to hostage negotiators to the home.
Loud noises could be heard inside the room as if she was chopping at the door with the ax, the door was all torn up when officers looked at it later.
She then opened the door and began to charge at the officer, who was in the narrow space of the stairwell, with a knife.
The officer was only 3 to 4 ft away from woman and had nowhere to go, so he fired several rounds at her.
The woman later died from those gunshot wounds, according to Dyer.
The name of the woman has not been released, but Dyer described her as 33-year-old.
Dyer says that the woman's husband told officers that she was suffering from some sort of mental health issues.
The officer that was involved in the shooting was not hurt, he will be put on an administrative leave pending investigation.
