The Sacramento Police Department provided more details Tuesday regarding a shooting that occurred Sunday where officers fatally shot an 22 year old, unarmed black man in his own backyard, mistaking his cellphone for a weapon.
Sunday, the police department officials said the officers were responding to a call of a person fitting the description of a six-foot-one man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and dark pants was breaking into vehicles. The caller reported to the authorities the man had broken car windows and was hiding in a backyard.
The helicopter deputies showed up to the scene and spotted, who they thought was the suspect, running south, toward the front of the house, where he reportedly jumped a fence into his grandparents’ yard, and then stopped and looked into another car, police said.
Stephon Clark Photo: Facebook
The suspect then reportedly fled toward the back of the home. The officers said they chased him to the backyard, where he then turned and advanced toward them “while holding an object which was extended in front of him.”
“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. A shot while later, the police questioned Sequita Thompson, Clark’s grandmother, who stated that she was home when the gunshots rang out.
“The only thing that I heard was pow, pow, pow, pow, and I got to the ground. I opened that curtain and he was dead,” she said. “I started screaming ~ Clark’s Grandmother Sequita said.”
She said that neither she nor her husband heard police issue commands before hearing gunfire. Thompson said she was interviewed for several hours before police told her Clark had been shot.
Stephon Alonzo Clark, whose legal name is Stephan Clark, was a stay-at-home father of two young sons, aged one and three, according to his family. He was a Sacramento High School alumnus, who had a fondness for sneakers, football and video games. He is survived by his two young sons, Cairo and Aiden.
“An innocent black man, going to his grandma and grandpa’s house where he lived. How are you going to explain that? How are you going to justify that,” Clark’s aunt, Shernita Crosby said.
#RIP Stephon Alonzo Clark
Police Mistake ‘Stephon Clark’ Cellphone For A Gun And Shoots Him 20 Times was originally published on wzakcleveland.com
