Sheriff’s office identifies man killed in Fresno deputy-involved shooting

The Fresno County coroner has identified a suspect killed in a deputy-involved shooting on Friday.

He was identified Sunday as 30-year-old Tyler Kennedy Deel.

The shooting occurred around 4 p.m. near the intersection of Clovis and Balch avenues in southeast Fresno.

The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office received a call of Deel becoming violent and threatening family members with a knife.

A deputy arrived within 10 minutes of the call and located Deel walking near a shopping center on the northeast corner of Kings Canyon Road and Clovis Avenue, carrying a five-foot tree branch, according to the sheriff’s office.

The deputy pulled his patrol vehicle into the shopping center and ordered Deel to drop the branch and surrender. The sheriff’s office said Deel pulled out a knife and threw it at the deputy and missed him.

Deel charged at the deputy with a tree branch. The deputy then retreated and fired multiple shots, striking Deel. He was pronounced dead at the scene behind a Valero gas station.

The deputy was not injured, authorities said.

The Fresno Police Department is handling the investigation into the deputy-involved shooting, because the shooting occurred within city limits.

Deel’s prior run-in with law enforcement

Deel appeared in Fresno Superior Court in 2016 after he fought with co-workers at McDonald’s, said he hated officers and injured a police officer’s head with a baton. Deel pleaded no contest.

A judge said Deel could be sentenced to probation. At the time, he had been in jail since the Sept. 4, 2015, attack at McDonald’s on Kings Canyon Road near Clovis Avenue.

Deel faced up to seven years in prison, but the judge delayed Deel’s sentencing hearing after a defense lawyer said the defendant suffered a seizure before he assaulted a Fresno police officer.

After the attack, jail medical staff learned that Deel has bipolar disorder, causing extreme shifts in mood and energy. The judge said Deel also suffers from Huntington’s disease, a fatal genetic disorder that causes the progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain.

The judge ordered Deel to be sent to prison for about 45 days, so prison officials could evaluate him and make a sentencing recommendation. He was sentenced in 2017 to seven years in prison, with credit for time served in Fresno County Jail, court records show. Deel was released to the custody of his mother in December 2018 and sentenced to probation.