Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg has weighed in on the fatal shooting of an unarmed African American man by members of the Sacramento Police Department.
"We must say loud and clear that what happened to Stephon Clark was plain wrong,” Steinberg said Friday. "It's wrong, because a 22-year-old man should not die in that way."
Clark was in his grandmother’s backyard at the time of the shooting on March 18. Police were looking for a person suspected of breaking car windows when Clark was spotted by a police helicopter. Cops entered the backyard in pursuit of Clark, whom they believed to be the perpetrator. Videotape shows one of the officers shouting “gun, gun, gun” before opening fire. What they thought was a firearm turned out to be a cell phone.
"They didn't have to kill him like that," said Clark's grandmother Sequita Thompson at a Monday news conference. "They didn't have to shoot him that many times." (Police reportedly fired 20 rounds.)
Days of protests followed on the streets of Sacramento. Even members of the NBA have weighed in.
The Sacramento Police Department says it is still investigating the incident. One key element they’ll be looking at is the moment in which officers appeared to deliberately mute the sound of their body cameras.
Daniel Hahn, the city’s first African American police chief, has acknowledged that peculiar decision “builds suspicion.”
Two officers have been placed on leave pending the investigation. The family, meanwhile, says it will seek an independent autopsy. A funeral for Clark is scheduled for Thursday.
Read more about the shooting at the Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Times, and CNN.