Man wielding steak knives fatally shot by police in Fresno, video shows
Body-worn camera footage released Friday showed Fresno police officers fired more than a dozen rounds at a man armed with two steak knives who said he “did not want to go back to prison” after a standoff, according to police.
Officers responded after 1:45 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, to an apartment near Blythe Avenue and Austin Way after a woman reported domestic violence by her husband, police said. The man identified as Joseph Merical, 35, would be fatally shot by officers.
“My husband was hitting me. He tried to kill me,” the woman can be heard saying in a 911 call.
She told police she worried her husband would hurt himself, because he had been to prison before and didn’t want to go back, the video shows.
The officers approached a second-story unit that had been barricaded by a planter on wheels and some other furniture, the video shows. Once the officers breached the door, they said it was blocked from the inside by a couch.
The officers were given a door key by the victim, police said. They attempted to speak to Merical for about 90 minutes before they breached the door with a battering ram and broke a window with another tool, video shows.
As officers pushed through the door, Merical tried to stab an officer, police said. He appeared to be holding a steak knife in each hand.
It is not clear in the video that Merical attempted to stab an officer, but he does appear to be holding the knives on the other side of the door as officers tried to enter.
Police said the officers then backed away from the door and called in crisis negotiators. About 8:15 p.m. the same day, Merical left his apartment, descended the stairs and headed straight at armed officers who were in the apartment’s parking lot, police said.
The video shows the officers yelling commands at Merical from a distance before they opened fire.
Merical was transported to a Fresno hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. Police said the woman was treated for minor injuries.
The woman’s child was not injured and neither were any officers, police said.
Fresno County Superior Court records show Merical had previously been sentenced to two years in Wasco State Prison after a 2022 domestic violence incident. He was on parole the day of the shooting, police said.
A sergeant and an officer who both fired rounds had not been named publicly, police said. It was the fifth officer-involved shooting in 2025 for the Fresno Police Department.
