SELMA, California — A Fresno County sheriff's deputy shot and critically wounded a 28-year-old man outside a home in Selma in the early hours of Tuesday, October 27, after the man — who deputies say had fired several gunshots outside the house during a domestic disturbance and was holding a handgun in the driveway — refused orders to drop the weapon, the Fresno County Sheriff's Office said in a statement published Tuesday.

Source: Fresno County Sheriff's Office

The Sheriff's Office identified the man as Manuel Frausto, 28, of Selma. He was taken into custody at the scene, given medical aid by deputies, and transported by EMS to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, where he is listed in critical condition, the office said. No deputy was reported injured, and the Sheriff's Office said the gunshots Frausto allegedly fired outside the home struck no people and no property.

A 2 a.m. call, gunshots outside the house, then a deputy opened fire

At 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday, Fresno County Sheriff's dispatchers received a call about a suicidal man armed with a gun outside of a home, the Sheriff's Office said. Deputies responded to the property on South Del Rey Avenue, just south of Manning Avenue, in Selma — a Fresno County city in California's Central Valley, south of the city of Fresno along the Highway 99 corridor.

What deputies found, the office said, was a domestic disturbance. Frausto, who lives in Selma but not at that address, had arrived to contact a woman he has a relationship with, according to the Sheriff's Office. A physical altercation occurred between the two before deputies arrived. The woman was able to separate herself from Frausto and locked him out of the house, the office said. The woman has not been named by authorities.

While outside, Frausto fired several gunshots, but no people or property were struck, the Sheriff's Office said. Dispatchers relayed to deputies that the suspect was pounding on a door of the house. When deputies arrived, they saw Frausto standing in the driveway holding a handgun, the office said.

Deputies ordered him to drop the gun and surrender, but he refused to cooperate, according to the Sheriff's Office. Frausto eventually made a movement that caused one deputy to fire his rifle, striking the suspect in the upper body, the office said. Deputies then approached, took him into custody and provided medical aid before EMS transported him to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. The account above is the Sheriff's Office's account of the shooting; the investigation is ongoing and no charges against Frausto had been announced in the office's statement.

Source: Mid Valley Times

Why a Selma driveway shooting matters across the Central Valley

Selma sits in the heart of Fresno County's farm belt, a region where Punjabi families have farmed, driven trucks and run businesses for generations, and where Highway 99 — the valley's main north-south trucking artery — runs past the city. A deputy-involved shooting on a residential street in the middle of the night is the kind of incident that draws the whole neighbourhood into questions about how domestic-disturbance calls are handled: these calls, in which officers arrive at a home where an argument has already turned physical and a gun is present, are among the most dangerous routine calls in American policing, because the situation is emotional, the layout of the home is unknown to officers, and decisions are made in seconds.

The Sheriff's Office said homicide detectives and members of its Crime Scene Unit arrived to process evidence and interview witnesses — the office's standard investigative response to a deputy-involved shooting, in which the detectives' job is to establish, independently of the deputies involved, exactly what happened in the driveway on South Del Rey Avenue.

What happens next

The investigation is ongoing, the Sheriff's Office said. Frausto remains in critical condition in Fresno, and the office has not announced charges or said when a further update will come. Anyone with additional information is asked to contact Detective Jose Leon at (559) 600-8221. Tips may also be submitted anonymously to Valley Crime Stoppers at (559) 498-7867 or at valleycrimestoppers.org; tipsters may be eligible for a cash reward. The case reference is #26-12582.