The Sacramento Police Department stated that on Sunday, March 18 at 9:18 p.m., two officers responded to a 9-1-1 call that an individual was breaking car windows. In a media release after the shooting, police stated that they had been looking for a suspect hiding in a backyard. They said the suspect was a thin black man, 6 feet 1 inch (185 cm) in height, wearing darkly colored pants and a black hooded sweatshirt. A sheriff’s helicopter spotted a man at 9:25 p.m., in a nearby backyard and told officers on the ground that he had shattered a window using a tool bar, run to the front of that house, and then looked in an adjacent car. Officers on the ground entered the front yard of Clark’s grandmother’s home, and saw Clark next to the home. Vance Chandler, the Sacramento Police Department spokesman, said that Clark was the same man who had been breaking windows, and was tracked by police in helicopters. Chandler said that when Clark was confronted and ordered to stop and show his hands, Clark fled to the back of the property. Police body camera footage from both of the officers who shot Clark recorded the incident, though the footage is dark and shaky. In the videos, officers spot Clark in his grandmother’s driveway and shout “Hey, show me your hands. Stop. Stop.” The video shows that the officers chased Clark into the backyard and an officer yells, “Show me your hands! Gun!” About three seconds elapse and then the officer yells, “Show me your hands! Gun, gun, gun”, before shooting Clark. According to the police, before being shot, Clark turned and held an object that he “extended in front of him” while he moved towards the officers. The officers said they believed that Clark was pointing a gun at them. The police stated that the officers feared for their safety, and at 9:26 p.m., fired 20 rounds, hitting Clark multiple times. According to an independent autopsy, Clark was shot eight times, including six times in the back. The report found that one of the bullets to strike Clark from the front was likely fired while he was already on the ground. Body-cam footage shows that after shooting him, the officers continued to yell at him as one shined a flashlight at him and they kept their guns aimed at him. One officer stated in one of the body-cam videos, “He had something in hands, looked like a gun from our perspective.” Three minutes after the shooting, a female officer called to him and said “We need to know if you’re OK. We need to get you medics, so we can’t go over and get you help until we know you don’t have a weapon.” They waited five minutes after shooting Clark before approaching and then handcuffing him. Clark was found to have an iPhone, and was unarmed. Clark’s girlfriend later said the phone belonged to her. After more officers arrived, one officer said “Hey, mute”, and audio recording from the body camera was turned off. The Police Department stated on March 19, one day after the shooting, that Clark had been seen with a “tool bar”. On the evening of that day, police revised their statement to say that Clark was carrying a cell phone, and not a tool bar, when he was shot. Police added that Clark might have used either a concrete block or an aluminum gutter railing to break a sliding glass door at the house next door to where he was shot, and that they believed Clark had broken windows from at least three vehicles in the area.
Source: Wikipedia
Funeral for Justice 