Author: Associated Press / Source: Snopes.com
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Two Sacramento police officers won’t face criminal charges for the fatal shooting of a black man following a chase that ended in his grandparents’ yard and started a series of angry protests that roiled California’s capital city, the county’s top prosecutor announced Saturday following a nearly yearlong investigation.
Officers Terrance Mercadal and Jared Robinet acted within the law when they shot 22-year-old Stephon Clark seven times, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert concluded, noting that the evidence supported their account that Clark was moving toward them when they opened fire.
Schubert said the evidence, including their reactions captured on body cameras, supported the officers’ statements that they thought Clark was pointing a gun.
It turned out Clark was holding only a cellphone. His family and their supporters expressed anger and disappointment, and accused Schubert of unnecessarily revealing grim details of Clark’s personal life.
“Whatever his character is or his actions prior to those officers gunning him down, is no one’s business,” said Clark’s mother, SeQuette, who had a brief and contentious meeting with Schubert before the DA made her announcement. “It’s not justification. That’s not a permit to kill him.”
Schubert said the decision not to file charges against the officers “does not diminish in any way the tragedy, the anger and the frustration that we heard since the time of his death. …
“We cannot ignore that there is rage within our community.”
Before Schubert had finished speaking, about 100 people were protesting peacefully in chilly rain outside Sacramento’s police headquarters.
The shooting last March prompted a series of larger demonstrations and protesters twice disrupted games for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings — once when they blocked thousands of fans from leaving the arena and another time when they blocked fans from entering. That game was played in a nearly empty arena.
During an hour-long presentation where she delved into minute details of the investigation and explained her legal reasoning, Schubert repeatedly apologized for raising the personal details.
Schubert revealed Clark was facing possible jail time after a domestic violence complaint two days earlier from Salena Manni, the mother of his children. He also had researched suicide websites including those that suggested using the tranquilizer Xanax, which was among several drugs found in his system after his death.
The district attorney stopped short of saying that Clark was attempting to kill himself, but said “a jury would be able to consider that evidence.”
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