Police, growing frustrated with increasing black activism, are now falling back on poor whites as targets of opportunity. The new strategy is working well - this group is unorganized, naive, and regarded as contemptible by the mainstream. [FONT="]In a standoff with Fresno officers at an emotional vigil Sunday night, friends of Noble, who was white, and other critics of the police department took to the streets, some carrying a Confederate flag and others promoting a White Lives Matter sign.[/FONT] [FONT="]The message was an appropriation of Black Lives Matter, the civil rights movement that emerged in response to the killings of African Americans, and the Fresno protest was swiftly mocked as racist and offensive on social media and in news reports.[/FONT] [FONT="]But in the sweltering heat of this suburban city in the Central Valley of California, 200 miles south-east of San Francisco, Nobles friends say the mainstream media and others deriding their protests have deeply misunderstood their way of life and message. Fresno police say that at 3.20pm on Saturday, officers were investigating reports of a man walking in the area with a rifle when they spotted Nobles pickup truck speeding by. After Noble pulled over at the Chevron gas station, he refused to show his hands to the officers as he exited, police said in a statement.[/FONT] The driver then turned towards officers with one hand concealed behind his back, and told officers he hated his life. According to the polices version of the incident, the officers believed Noble was armed and fired four shots at him when he allegedly advanced toward them with his hand behind his back. It turned out that Noble did not have a weapon on him or in his vehicle, police chief Jerry Dyer said in an interview. Dyer, however, insisted that the two officers, now on administrative leave, acted appropriately.
