Family calls for justice after video shows Sacramento police kill black man holding phone
The family of Stephon Clark renewed its calls for justice Thursday, hours after police in Sacramento released body-camera and helicopter video footage of a fatal shooting by officers that activists say raises new questions about the officers’ actions.
Clark, 22, was killed Sunday after two officers, responding to a call about someone breaking windows with a crowbar, confronted him outside his grandmother’s home. In video footage, Clark can be seen running to the back yard, where an officer is heard yelling at Clark to “show me your hands” and then exclaiming “Gun!” The two officers fired 20 times at Clark, killing him. The only thing in his hands, police have since said, was a white iPhone.
“He was at the wrong place at the wrong time in his own back yard?” Sequita Thompson, Clark’s grandmother, told the Sacramento Bee. “Come on, now — they didn’t have to do that.”
The video’s audio also captured one of the officers seeming to suggest that they turn their cameras off.
“Hey mute?” an officer says to another about seven minutes after the shooting. The audio goes silent, and shortly after, the videos end.
“It clearly implies to me that they’re on the scene trying to figure out the coverup,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke with Clark’s mother Wednesday and whose civil rights group is helping the family find legal representation. “You’re standing over a dead body that you thought had a gun, you find out he had no gun, and your immediate impulse is to mute the sound.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/family-calls-for-justice-after-video-shows-sacramento-police-kill-black-man-holding-phone/ar-BBKA8Fw?ocid=spartandhp