***Update***
I received a call after posting this story from a spokesperson the family retained to help organize the statewide initiation. Dylan’s mother, Veronica Nelson, was in the room during the phone call. They stated that they had not told the lawyer yet as he is expensive to deal with and they wanted to get out in front of the news of the toxicology release that they say was leaked by the Sheriffs Department and Sheriff Mims. Some of the questions I had on this story were answered, others not. But the statement is that the site is legitimate and they want people to donate to build up the fund to file paperwork and print ballots. That is all I have at this moment.
If you are a Facebook cruiser, you may have noticed a recent link making its way though the interwebs looking for donations to help create a petition in the name of Dylan Noble. The hope of this site is to get enough money and signatures to put Dylan’s Law on a ballot eventually. In its first appearance, this is a site that at best is an attempt to bring some positive outcome out of the Dylan Noble shooting, and at worst, a sick attempt to gain financial benefit and collect data from the use of Dylan’s name and likeness.
When I first saw the website I immediately thought this was someones attempt to exploit the story for personal gain, whether a family member or someone close. This morning I started digging a little deeper into the website to see what it was all about.
The website itself is a low level site with 9 pages and the appearance of being a legitimate website. Looking into the registry information I discovered this.
This important part of this is the registrant contact is hidden. And it is based out of Panama. No connection locally. This can be done from Fresno. So the first part of this site already puts up red flags.
Next, I looked into what Dylan’s Law would entail. The website states “We are working very hard to bring the community together to pass a statewide Dylan’s Law in memory of Dylan Noble. We are very concerned with what is happening in this country and the sometimes fatal interactions between law enforcement and the public. We don’t pretend for one minute that being a cop is an easy job. We know sometimes judgment calls have to be made in mere seconds. We know this. We also know that the vast majority of sworn officers are good, decent people.
We want to not only pass Dylan’s Law, but we feel it is important to EDUCATE THE PUBLIC, especially teenagers, on how to handle law enforcement interactions. We do not want Dylan’s death to be in vain. He was such a great kid and we know he would want us to do something to help others.
In order to pass a statewide Dylan’s Law, we have a lot of work to do and a lot of money will need to be raised. One of the things we will need to do in the next few months is to have a petition drive to get the required 400,000+ signatures needed to put Dylan’s Law on the ballot for the people to vote on.
Those signatures must be hand written and signed on our officially printed paper petitions. If you sign up for our newsletter, we will keep you posted on when that will start.
This is an ongoing work in progress. We will be updating this page frequently.”
There is no information on what this Law would entail. The main point is to pull on the heart strings and try to get people to donate to help make this petition real. Well, lets look at what that website states as far as getting that petition passed.
They state in their FAQ that they are NOT collecting signatures at this point. They are only pushing for donations to their cause. I looked up what it takes to create a petition. To get a petition started one only needs signatures. A simple search on the process gave me this quote. “AS OF JANUARY 15, 2013: To cross the first threshold and be searchable within WhiteHouse.gov, a petition must reach 150 signatures within 30 days. To cross the second threshold and require a response, a petition must reach 100,000 signatures within 30 days. The Terms of Participation were last updated on March 7, 2016.”
This provided yet another red flag in this process. Maybe though the money is designed for promotion of this page via paid adverts on Facebook and Google. At this point I looked into the petition process on the website.
What I read from this is that the website creator wants to have Chief Dyer release the names of the officers and all evidence from the incident. — “As such, We the People demand that Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer immediately releases to the public, the names of the officers who were at the scene of the Dylan Noble shooting, and to specify the name of the officer who was caught on video readying his weapon, and holding his weapon in his hand, while he was driving.”
Ok, so now I am wondering if this is just to get that information out to the public. And whoever created this website was hoping to use a petition to get that information out to the public. But why Dylan’s Law. A law just so we can get information out on one case? Or is this setting precedent. At this point I looked in to the donate part of the website that is pushed over and over again in links on every page. At the top of the page there are various options for donations. Those options begin at $20 up to $5000 and allow for a monthly payment option. Also, the page states that “For a limited time, all donors of $20.00 or more will receive a free Dylan’s Law bumper sticker. Get one before they are all gone! All information requested below is required by the state of California finance laws.
This part is a huge issue. No where does CA finance laws require anyone to give up so much personal information to make a donation. This now looks like a clear data mining situation that could create opportunity for the website creators to commit identity theft. Any person that donates to help out Dylan’s Law will be giving financial information as well as personal and work information under the guise of CA Law.
This brings me back to the question of who. Who is behind this site and what are the motivations of the individuals. There is a section of the website called ‘Newsletter.’
Wow. It appears from the page that Dylan Nobles family and attorney, Stuart Chandler, are directly related to this page, giving it more credibility. I contacted Dylan’s mother, Veronica Nelson, and as of this posting, she has not replied to my request for comment. I also contacted Stuart Chandler and he said that his office nor the family has any connection to this website at all.
One other little detail stood out to me as well. The bottom of the page has a copyright 2016 – Dylan’s Law. Looking on the U.S. Copyright registry, there is no data on this being real. It is a small piece but yet another questionable piece on this website.
It is clear now that this website has been setup using Dylan Noble’s image and the police shooting to not only gain financially, but to fraudulently scam people out of their personal information with the purpose of committing identity theft.
Again, I sit on the question of who? If this was an off shore scam that people are all too familiar with, then why the heavy focus on Chief Dyer and the Fresno Police Department. It is feeling like this is a website setup by someone locally that has bad intentions criminally and with an ax to grind with the FPD. The problem with this is that this is fraud. It is a felony to operate in the way they have. The FBI and Fresno County has been notified and they will look into the case to see if they agree with what I believe this site represents.
I will update the story as more information comes through. We will also discuss this on The Kick on Monday night at 7PM on Longbox.FM.
If you have questions or additional information, please contact Chris Dowdy at (559)492-0450 or email at Dowdy@Longbox.FM
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