Exclusive video shows moments before Fresno County deputy shooting

Exclusive video obtained by Action News shows the moments before a Fresno County sheriff’s deputy shot 27-year-old Mathew Lopez of Fresno late Tuesday. The footage adds a new visual record to a case that unfolded after several 9-1-1 calls and a confrontation outside a home in central Fresno.

Deputies were first sent to the area around 6:30 p.m., near Olive and Cornelia avenues and in the 3400 block of Circle Court East, after a family said a man was threatening to kill them. When deputies arrived, they found Lopez holding a knife and waving it around in front of the home, according to Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office-related reporting.

Local coverage says the confrontation escalated into a fight, and Lopez attacked the deputy before the shooting. The deputy was left with bruises and lacerations, while Lopez was shot and taken to the hospital in critical condition, where he was undergoing surgery. Another report identified the scene near Clinton Avenue and First Street, placing the shooting in a neighborhood where homes and street traffic sit close together.

The new footage is expected to be scrutinized for details that official summaries rarely settle on their own: how quickly deputies closed the distance, whether Lopez was already armed when the confrontation turned physical, and what sequence of movements led to the gunfire. In cases like this, even a few seconds of video can settle competing accounts about whether deputies were responding to an active threat or whether the encounter intensified after they arrived.

The Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office has written procedures that call for a use-of-force review board, and its policy manual says the office should conduct both a critical incident or stress debriefing and a tactical review after an officer-involved shooting or death. Those reviews, along with any outside examination, are likely to focus on the timing of the 9-1-1 calls, the knife threat, the reported attack on the deputy and the split second before shots were fired.

For Fresno County residents, the video puts fresh attention on a shooting that already raised questions about force, response time and public safety on a residential block. It also leaves the central issues intact: exactly what deputies saw when they arrived, how Lopez behaved in the moments before the gunfire, and whether the force used matched the threat officers said they faced.