FRESNO – Officers shot and killed a woman who had been acting erratically and threatened them with knives in a small apartment.
Officers responded to a 3:30 p.m. call on Friday at an apartment complex near Fresno State from a man who said that a woman was dancing around outside and acting erratically. By the time officers arrived at the scene, the woman had gone inside the man’s apartment and the man asked them to remove her because she was trespassing.
The officers entered the living room of the apartment and the woman appeared from the kitchen with two 8-inch carving knives. She advanced toward the officers, swinging the knives, according to Chief Jerry Dyer.
“The officers told her to drop the knife,” Dyer said. “One of the officers deployed a Taser and it did not have the desired affect. She continued to advance toward the officers in this relatively confined area. The officer felt threatened at that point, and fired his firearm at the female.”
The woman, now identified as Veronica Canter, was hit at least two times, once in the lower part of her body and once in the upper part of her body. Officers unsuccessfully attempted to do CPR and first aid on Canter. She died from her injuries.
Dyer said this is not the first time the police department has been called out on account of the woman’s behavior.
“We had a prior call with this female back in the middle of February. She was displaying some erratic, bizarre behavior at that time, so it appears the behavior she was displaying today may have been similar to that,” he said.
Dyer said that Canter and the man who called police had “some type of relationship,” but he was not “certain as to what degree.”
This is Fresno’s second officer-involved shooting of 2014.
Read More:
ABC30: Woman fatally shot by Fresno police identified
KMPH: Woman shot and killed by Fresno police
