Stephon Clark, 22, was in the backyard of the home he shared with his
grandparents and some of his siblings when he was killed, Clark’s
brother told the Sacramento Bee.
The police department said officers were responding to a report that someone was breaking car windows nearby.
The suspect was described as a 6-foot-1 man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and dark pants hiding in a backyard.
Deputies told police the suspect had used a “toolbar” to break another home’s window.
Deputies in a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department helicopter spotted
Clark in a backyard, and told deputies he had shattered a window with a
tool bar.
Deputies instructed officers on the ground to the man’s location.
Police approached Clark, who they initially believed was armed with a
gun, though no firearm was recovered from the scene, according to the
Sacramento Bee.
Sequita Thompson, Clark's grandmother, said she was awake and sitting in the home's dining room when she heard four gunshots.
“The only thing that I heard was pow, pow, pow, pow, and I got to the ground," she said.
Thompson said neither she nor her husband heard police issuing commands prior to the shots being fired.
Thompson dropped to the floor and
crawled to the spot where her 7-year-old granddaughter slept on the a
couch in an adjacent den, telling her to get on the ground as well, she
said.
Thompson then made her way to her husband, who uses a wheelchair to move around.
Thompson said it was normal for
Clark and others to enter the home through the backyard because the
front doorbell doesn't work and she and her husband, who is in a
wheelchair, have poor mobility. People would knock on the back window
and ask her to use an automatic opener to raise the garage door to admit
them, she said.
Thompson said her husband called 911 to report the shots.
Body-camera footage of the shooting will be released within 30 days, per a city policy approved in November 2016.
Our condolences go out to Clark's friends and family. It seems as if no matter what you have in your hand whether it's a pen or a cell phone and you're stopped by police, you risk being killed because they feared for their life. Perhaps all police officers should undergo "object identification" so they can know the difference between a gun and cellphone. Ridiculous.
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