Nearly a year after an unarmed black man was fatally shot by Sacramento police, prosecutors Saturday announced there would be no charges against the two officers who fired at and killed Stephon Clark.
Clark, a 22-year-old father of two, was fatally shot on the night of March 18, 2018, as he ran to the backyard of his grandmother’s Sacramento home while police were responding to a neighbor’s call about someone breaking into cars.
The police officers said they began shooting at Clark because they thought he was holding a gun; he was later found to have been holding only an iPhone.
Police body camera and helicopter footage later showed the officers had fired at Clark 20 times. The official coroner’s report concluded Clark was shot seven times, while an independent autopsy ordered by Clark’s family showed he had been struck eight times, including six in the back.
Clark’s shooting sparked demonstrations in California’s capital and nationwide by people protesting police use of force.
Demonstrators in Sacramento blocked fans from entering NBA games, marched on the city’s streets and gathered at a City Council meeting to protest. In January, Clark’s family filed a $20 million lawsuit against the city of Sacramento.
At a news conference Saturday, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert acknowledged the “tremendous grief, anger and anxiety by the Clark family and by this community” since last March.
Schubert said she had met that morning with Clark’s mother, whose grief was “very apparent.”
“There is no question that the death of Stephon Clark is a tragedy, not just for his family but for this community,” Schubert said.
“My job as a district attorney is to make sure that we conduct a full, fair and independent review of this shooting. That job means that I follow the facts in the law and that, in that process of this review, that we treat everyone with dignity, grace and fairness.”
Schubert announced that a months-long investigation supported the conclusion that the officers were justified in using deadly force against Clark.
“We must recognize that (police officers) are often forced to make split-second decisions. We must also recognize that they are under tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving circumstances,” Schubert said. “That is the crux of this whole case: Did the officers have an honest and reasonable belief they needed to defend themselves?” In this case, the officers believed they did, Schubert said.
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