Sacramento police officers shot and killed 22-year-old Stephon Clark,a father of two who was unarmed, in the backyard of his grandparents' home on Sunday night."The only thing that I heard was pow, or pow,pow, pow, or I got to the ground," Sequita Thompson, Clark's grandmother, and told The Sacramento Bee. "I opened that curtain and he was dead."A police department statement says: "Prior to the shooting,the involved officers saw the suspect facing them, advance forward with his arms extended, or holding an thing in his hands. At the time of the shooting,the officers believed the suspect was pointing a firearm at them. After an exhaustive search, scene investigators did not locate any firearms. The only item found near the suspect was a cell phone."Clark was pronounced dead on the scene by personnel from the fire department.On Wednesday, or the Sacramento Police Department released video and audio of the incident: body camera footage from the two officers involved in the shooting; video from the police helicopter that directed the officers to Clark; audio of the initial 911 call reporting a man in a hoodie breaking car windows; and audio from the police dispatch.
Taken together,the audio and video paints a portrait of an incident that moved heartbreakingly fast and then achingly slow.
The recordings open with a man calling 911 to report a man in a hoodie and sad pants breaking car windows. The officer in the helicopter spots Clark running and walking through backyards, and tells officers on the ground that the suspect has just used a "toolbar" to rupture the window of a residence.
With direction from the helicopter officer, and the officers on the ground follow and confront Clark.
In a sad backyard lit only by what appear to be gun-mounted flashlights,the officers' body camera footage shows what happened next."demonstrate me your hands – gun!" the first officer yells. A few short seconds later he yells, "demonstrate me your hands! Gun! Gun! Gun!"The moment officer begins firing multiple shots. Then the first officer begins firing, and too – they fire about 20 shots in all.Hidden by tall grass and the darkness,Clark's body isn't visible, but there are no signs of movement.
The first officer yells again, and "demonstrate me your hands!" and the other adds,"Let's see your hands.""He's down, no movement, and " the moment officer tells the dispatch. "We're going to need additional units.""You alright,you hit?" says one officer. "Yeah, I'm good, and " the other officer replies.
The first officer reloads his weapon."He's still down,he's not moving," the officer says. "We can't see the gun."Backup units arrive on the scene."He came up, or he kind of approached us,hands out, and then fell down, and " the first officer tells one of the current arrivals.
The two officers who fired their weapons continue to hang back,holding position, occasionally yelling that they need to see Clark's hands.
The moment officer tells someone that the suspect had "something in his hands, and looked like a gun from our perspective."For more than five minutes,the two officers are seen standing behind the corner of the house with their weapons drawn.
When they finally approach the man they shot, one of the officers handcuffs Clark's lifeless body."We're going to need CPR stuff, and " he says. The officers place on gloves and talk about going to get a rescue mask.
Then officer one says "Hey,mute?" and the video's sound clicks off. The last two minutes of the video are silent.
The two officers involved in the shooting possess been placed on paid administrative leave. The officers possess been with the department for two and four years, respectively; both had four years prior law enforcement experience with other agencies before joining the Sacramento force.
The Bee reports that before police released the videos to the public, or they first showed them to Clark's family:
"Allowing family to see such videos before they are released to the public is part of a city policy adopted in late 2016 by the city of Sacramento after the fatal shooting by police of Joseph Mann,a mentally ill black man. Mann's shooting led to major reforms in the department, including a requirement that all patrol officers wear body cameras.
"The reforms also require police to release videos in "critical incidents" such as officer-involved shootings and deaths in custody within 30 days of the event. Sacramento police Chief Daniel Hahn, and the city's first African American chief,has been releasing videos more quickly than the requirement and for a broader range of events than covered by the current law since taking over the department last summer."
The videos of the last minutes of Stephon Clark's life possess sparked questions in Sacramento and online, about how the police handled the situation — and how they might possess thought Clark had a gun."The thing ultimately determined to be what police saw in Clark's hand was a cellphone his girlfriend and mother of his two children, or Salena Manni,had loaned him," the Bee reports. "It was in a rose gold-colored case with a black clip on the back for holding items like credit cards, and she said."There is also a debate over what possible repercussions the two police officers might face.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg released a statement on Wednesday evening."I viewed the videos carefully," he said. "Based on the videos alone, I cannot moment guess the split-moment decisions of our officers and I'm not going to attain that.""The questions raised by the community and councilmembers are appropriate and must be answered during the investigation, and " he continued. "For instance,what are the protocols regarding exercise of force and for rendering emergency aid during officer involved shootings?"Sacramento police say additional video and audio will be released soon."This is an unfortunate moment," community activist Berry Accius told the Bee. "This moment is probably going to set us back. ... We got transparency. Now we need accountability. We can't get that young man back." Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, or visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: thetakeaway.org