On Sunday, at 9:18 p.m., officers from the Sacramento Police Department arrived at a house on 29th Street, investigating reports that someone was breaking the windows of vehicles, a separate, earlier police statement said on Monday. The person who called the police said the suspect was wearing a black hoodie and dark pants and was “hiding in a backyard.”
Officers in a Sheriff’s Department helicopter overhead informed the police that they saw someone matching that description and helped to direct the police to him, saying he had just “picked up a toolbar and broke a window to a residence.” He was then seen running to the front of a house, the statement said.
When officers arrived at the house, they say, the man ran toward the back and they pursued. Then, “the suspect turned and advanced towards the officers while holding an object which was extended in front of him,” the police statement said. “The officers believed the suspect was pointing a firearm at them.”
“Fearing for their safety, the officers fired their duty weapons striking the suspect multiple times,” the statement said. Two officers fired 10 rounds each, the police told reporters, according to a report by KCRA.
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Mr. Clark, who the local news media said had two children, was pronounced dead at the scene, the police said. Investigators found a cellphone near his body but no firearms, they said.
The officers who fired their weapons have been with the department for two and four years and also had several years of experience in other departments. They were placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated by district and city attorneys and the Office of Public Safety Accountability, the police said (Hauser 2).
The raw footage [of the shooting] was released in March, and was widely shared on social media. After publishing an initial report, we [New York Times] decided to take a closer look. The result is the most comprehensive analysis to date — a detailed spatial and moment-by-moment record of the shooting.
Protests broke out in Sacramento after the killing of Mr. Clark. His death was the latest in a series of caught-on-camera police shootings of black men, including Alton B. Sterling in 2016, Walter L. Scott in 2015 and Michael Brown in 2014.
In Mr. Clark’s case, the protesters demanded the city’s leadership fire the two officers involved. Mr. Clark’s family also accused the police department of trying to cover up misconduct by its officers. An investigation into the shooting by the Sacramento Police Department is ongoing. The two officers involved in the shooting are back on desk duty, but aren’t out on patrol.
For our analysis, we started by looking at every frame of the crucial 23 seconds. Then, we used Google Earth to map the officers’ and Clark’s movements, by matching up the videos with satellite imagery.
We reviewed more than 50 police videos of the aftermath, in addition to the official autopsy report and police audio recordings.
We also reviewed Sacramento Police Department policies and international guidelines, and talked to experts about police conduct.
Our goal was to shed new light on what happened during the encounter and to explain why it escalated so quickly.
It’s a detailed look at a person’s violent death and we can’t point to a single factor that explains why Stephon Clark was killed. Both officers had more than five years of experience in law enforcement, according to the Police Department.
This episode and other police killings of unarmed black people raise questions about structural racism, police training and use-of-force protocols. In Sacramento, officers can use deadly force not only as a last resort — but also if an officer “reasonably believes” there is a threat. And Sacramento isn’t the exception: Guidelines in many U.S. cities are generally less strict than international standards, which permit the use of force only in response to an “imminent threat,” and if all other means fail. Even when police officers in the U.S. are charged or indicted, they are rarely convicted. As of late last year, in 15 high-profile cases involving deaths of black people, only one officer faces prison time, according to research by the New York Times. The shooting of Mr. Clark is also complicated by the fact that one of the officers is white and the other is black, as the police videos show (Koetti 1-2).
[Paste the following on Google to watch the Times video]
23 Seconds, 5 Critical Moments: How Stephon Clark Was …
Part of the [police department] transcript [of the shooting] included Clark’s grandmother describing the gunshots and commotion she heard, unaware that her grandson was the victim.
“All of a sudden I heard shots like pow pow pow. I heard four of them,” she said, according to a witness statement on the police report. “I thought it might have been fireworks because I could see the flash and I do not know if gun shots do that. I grabbed my granddaughter and laid on the floor.”
When police asked her if anyone tried to break into her house, she said no. “If somebody tried to get in our house, it’s my … probably be my grandson ‘cause sometimes we can’t hear him.”
When police tell her that someone was shot dead in her backyard and it’s now a crime scene, she asked whether the victim was black.
“I hope it ain’t my grandson,” she said. “Please don’t tell me it’s my grandson. Please don’t. No.”
She looked out through the window and saw Clark.
“He was just comin’ home and y’all was comin’ through the back. … He don’t have no gun. He don’t carry no gun. Oh, my god. He got two children,” she said.
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Frustrated residents decried the state attorney general’s decision not to bring charges against the officers who shot Clark.
The AG’s move continued a week of disappointment for Clark’s supporters after Sacramento County on Saturday also declined to bring charges.
Nearly a year ago, his death triggered days of protests with demonstrators demanding police accountability, part of the broader Black Lives Matter movement (Karimi 3, 4).
The police officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark will not be charged by the Sacramento county district attorney’s office.
According to the district attorney, Anne Marie Schubert, the officers were justified in using lethal force and did not commit a crime.
“When we look at all of these facts and circumstances,” she said on Saturday, “we ask ourselves, was a crime committed?
“The answer to that question is no.”
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Schubert has investigated more than 30 police shootings since January 2015 and has never filed charges, according to the Sacramento Bee newspaper.
Clark’s killing sparked protests and heightened an ongoing national debate over police use of force.
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In her press conference, Schubert spent nearly an hour going over video footage and images from the night of Clark’s killing. She also shared personal text messages, phone logs, internet searches and email drafts from Clark’s cellphone to show, she said, Clark’s state of mind in the days leading up to his death.
Dr Flojaune Cofer, senior director of policy at Public Health Advocates, a sponsor of the use of force bill, questioned why the district attorney shared such personal information from Clark and not the officers who killed him.
“I listened to an explanation for why this person deserved to die,” Cofer said. “And what was most troubling about that is that I didn’t hear similar investigation into the officers’ behavior, even though they were the ones who should have been under investigation for criminal negligence.”
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“Stephon Clark was murdered twice,” said Saad Sweilem, the civil rights attorney for the Council on American-Islaimc Relations in Sacramento Valley, adding that Schubert “assassinated his character” (Kempa 1-3).
Two police officers in Sacramento, California, are back on duty after federal authorities cleared them of federal criminal civil rights charges in the shooting death of 22-year-old Stephon Clark.
U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott and Special Agent-in-Charge Sean Ragan of the FBI's Sacramento Division said there was insufficient evidence "to prove beyond a reasonable doubt" that officers Terrance Mercadal and Jared Robinet violated a federal statute.
Clark's death, which led to contentious protests throughout the California capital, should not result in charges, [Police Chief Daniel] Hahn said, because every investigation of the shooting turned up the same results.
"This incident has been thoroughly investigated by law enforcement agencies at the local, state and federal levels," Hahn told ABC Sacramento station KXTV. "Every one of these independent examinations has reached the same finding: The use of deadly force in this case was lawful."
"The officers involved in this case will return to full, active duty," Hahn said in a statement.
While authorities look to put the incident behind them, Clark's family said it doesn't make sense to already have the offices back on duty.
"My brother was killed, unarmed, in my grandmother's backyard, and the same cop who killed him is back on the streets patrolling other communities, running through other people's backyards," Clark's brother, Stevante told KXTV. "I'm uneasy with that. My heart is broken."
"Justice delayed is justice denied," Stevante wrote on his Facebook page (Mansell 1-2).
The family of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man who was shot seven times by Sacramento police officers last year and whose death prompted California to change its use-of-force law, reached a $2.4 million settlement this week with the capital city, court filings show.
The money will go to Mr. Clark’s two sons, ages 2 and 5, in three lump sums starting when they turn 22, according to the settlement, which was approved on Tuesday by a Federal District Court judge in Sacramento. The sons will receive just under $900,000 each once lawyer fees are deducted from the settlement.
The settlement came after negotiations between Sacramento and Mr. Clark’s family, which had filed a $20 million wrongful-death lawsuit in January against the city and the two officers involved in the shooting, which occurred in the backyard of Mr. Clark’s grandparents.
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Tanya Faison, a founder of Black Lives Matter Sacramento, said the settlement was revealing.
“I think it is a pretty clear sign of guilt when the City of Sacramento settles on a $2.4 million dollar lawsuit with Stephon Clark’s children,” Ms. Faison said in an email. “How many more Stephon Clarks do we have to have before our police department starts holding officers accountable instead of settling a lawsuit and calling it ‘justice’?”
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Sacramento officials said they wanted to avoid protracted and costly litigation of defending the city in the Clark family’s wrongful-death lawsuit.
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… the city passed an emergency order in April 2018 requiring police officers to keep their body cameras and audio recording equipment activated in all cases, except for narrowly defined circumstances.
In July 2018, the Police Department adopted a new policy that requires officers to assess both the danger to themselves and the public when pursuing a suspect on foot, as well as the importance of apprehending the suspect.
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… a law was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in August requiring that the police use deadly force only “when necessary in defense of human life.” The law previously allowed for the use of deadly force when “reasonable” (Vigdor 1-3).
Works cited:
Hauser, Christine. “Sacramento Man Fatally Shot by the Police in His Backyard.” The New York Times, March 21, 2018. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/us/stephon-clark-police-shooting.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer
Karimi, Faith. “Officers Who Killed Stephon Clark Reveal New Details about the Night He Died.” CNN, updated March 9, 2019. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/07/us/sacramento-stephon-clark-shooting
Kempa, David. Stephon Clark: Police Officers Who Shot Man Eight Times Will Not Be Charged.” The Guardian, March 2, 2019. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/02/stephon-clark-police-officers-no-charges
Koetti, Christoph. “What We Learned from the Videos of Stephon Clark Being Killed by Police.” The New York Times, June 7, 2018. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/us/police-shooting-stephon-clark.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer
Mansell, William. “Officers Who Killed Stephon Clark Won't Face Federal Civil Rights Charges.” ABC News, September 27, 2019. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/US/officers-killed-stephon-clark-face-federal-civil-rights/story?id=65901923
Vigdor, Neil. “Stephon Clark’s Sons Reach $2.4 Million Settlement over Police Killing.” The New York Times, October 10, 2019. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/us/stephon-clark-shooting-settlement.html
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