Two Sacramento police officers will not 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 on 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 said, adding that the evidence supported their account that Clark was moving toward them when they opened fire.
Schubert said that 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 district attorney made her announcement. “It’s not justification. That’s not a permit to kill him.”
The decision not to file charges against the officers “does not diminish in any way the tragedy,” Schubert said, adding: “We cannot ignore that there is rage within our community.”
Before Schubert had finished speaking, Black Lives Matter began a demonstration where about 100 people eventually protested peacefully in chilly rain outside Sacramento’s police headquarters.
The shooting in March last year prompted larger demonstrations.
Protesters twice disrupted games for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, including one where they blocked thousands of fans from entering. That game was played in a nearly empty arena.
Schubert repeatedly apologized for raising the personal details during her hour-long presentation.
She revealed that Clark was facing possible jail time after a domestic violence complaint two days earlier from Salena Manni, the mother of his two children.
He also had researched suicide Web sites, including those that suggested using a tranquilizer, which was among several drugs found in his system after his death.
“I can’t tell ultimately what was going on in his mind,” Schubert said. “He was in a state of despair and he was impaired, and that may have affected his judgment.”
The disclosures brought additional outcries from protest leaders and Clark’s relatives, including Manni, who said they were not relevant to whether the officers acted properly.
The decision continues “the shameful legacy of officers killing black men without consequences,” Manni said.
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