Taxpayer relief shot took out a career criminal.
Via Sac Bee:
One year after Sacramento police shot Stephon Clark to death and sparked a renewed national dialogue over police shootings of young black men, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert declared Saturday that the officers feared for their lives and “acted lawfully under the circumstances.” She declared the shooting justified and said her office was not pressing criminal charges.
In a statement that lasted more than an hour, Schubert said the officers who shot Clark believed he was armed with a gun and that Clark advanced toward the officers before they opened fire.
In a 61-page report on the March 18, 2018, death of Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old who was being chased in the Meadowview area of south Sacramento as a suspected car burglar, Schubert found that the two officers believed Clark was advancing on them with a handgun when they fired 20 rounds at him in a confrontation in his grandparents’ backyard.
Investigators later found the officers had mistaken a white and pink iPhone in his hands for a gun, a determination that led to angry protests nationwide and dozens of proposed reforms in how the Sacramento Police Department trains its officers on the use of deadly force.
But Schubert’s review of video recordings, autopsy reports and witness interviews found that the officers believed the object in his hand was a firearm and that Clark ignored their warnings to stop.
“The evidence in this case demonstrates that both officers had an honest and reasonable belief that they were in imminent danger of death or great bodily injury,” Schubert wrote in a seven-page summary that accompanied the report. “Therefore, the shooting of Mr. Clark was lawful and no criminal charges will be filed.”
Schubert said during her remarks that based on the comments the officers made on the scene, they believed Clark had a gun and pointed it at them as he approached them. One officer saw what he thought was a muzzle flash, the other reported seeing a metallic glint.
They both ducked behind a corner of a house. When the officers stepped back around the corner, Clark had advanced 15 feet toward them and they fired.
“Clearly we all know he didn’t have a gun,”Schubert said. “But the officers didn’t know that.”
The report, the 34th consecutive officer-involved shooting review that Schubert’s office has issued with a finding that officers acted legally, also offered sympathetic words over Clark’s death, a nod to the angry protests and conciliatory remarks about the shooting by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg.