‘Kill him!': Video shows disturbing ambush attack on Calif. deputy, fatal shooting

By Sandra McDonald
Los Angeles Times

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif. — New video shows a dramatic fight between a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy and a man and woman before the deputy fatally shoots the woman.

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The video of the June 11 incident shows the struggle lasted for four minutes before help arrived.

The deputy, who has not been identified, was in the 1000 block of West 6th Avenue in Corona shortly after 1 a.m. when he saw a man and woman acting oddly, Sheriff Chad Bianco says in the video. When the deputy tries to speak with them, the pair — identified as Eric John Nourani, 32, and Jennifer Rose Dobbins, 30 — run behind a building. The deputy follows. When he catches up with them, the video from his body-worn camera shows, he is attacked by Nourani.

“Kill him! Kill him!” Nourani repeats to Dobbins during the attack.

The deputy is on top of Nourani on the ground, his hand on the man’s throat, while Dobbins grabs his arms and shouts again and again, “In the name of Jesus, I rebuke you.”

About two minutes into the fight, Dobbins begins to kick the deputy while he struggles with Nourani, and the deputy fires at Dobbins, killing her.

Dobbins cries out after she is shot and is seen lying several feet away while the men continue to fight. “Help me. Eric, I’m scared,” she says.

Shortly after the incident in June, sheriff’s officials said Nourani was trying to take the deputy’s gun. In the video, as Nourani struggles with the deputy, he shouts, “Get the gun!”

Both men are out of breath and panting but still wrestling when passersby arrive and pull Nourani away, more than four minutes after the fight began.

Dobbins was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Nourani was booked on suspicion of murder, attempted murder of a peace officer, mayhem and resisting an officer with violence. Although the deputy fired the gun, Norani can be charged with murder under the state’s accomplice liability for felony murder law.

The California Department of Justice is investigating the deputy-involved shooting.

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