Riots and protests over the shooting death of 22-year-old father Stephon Clark by police last month continued to rock Sacramento last weekend, causing the shutdown of major roadways and strengthening calls for justice.
Clark was shot on March 18 by officers who were responding to a complaint about a series of vehicle break-ins. They apparently mistook an iPhone he was holding for a gun. An independent autopsy reportedly suggests Clark was shot at least six times in the back by police while he was standing in his grandmother’s back yard.
“It’s more than color. It’s about wrong and right,” former Sacramento Kings player Matt Barnes told hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in downtown Sacramento on Saturday in the Cesar E. Chavez Plaza, according to the Los Angeles Times. He called for police to “learn the community that you’re out here patrolling.
The officers involved in the shooting death of the unarmed Clark have been placed on paid administrative leave.
The Sacramento Police Department released body cam video footage of the incident.
“I think that the mayor along with the police chief [of Sacramento] did something in California that other chiefs and mayors need to do,” the Rev. Shane Harris, who leads the San Diego chapter of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, said, according to the Washington Post. “You have families across California that didn’t get the kind of transparent investigation that this family is going to get.”
During a press conference on Monday, Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones reportedly said “there are paid protesters” who specifically appear at rallies, like the one for Clark, to cause violence and that some of these protesters were present at a vigil for Clark on Sunday night.
Clark leaves behind two sons, aged three and one.
During Saturday’s rally, a woman was allegedly struck by a sheriff’s department cruiser. 61-year-old Wanda Cleveland was reportedly hit by the cruiser before it drove of and was taken to a hospital, where she was treated for injuries to her arm and the back of the head. She was reportedly released soon afterwards.
News reports suggest the police officer in the cruiser may not have known he hit the protester.
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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