California capital's mayor says he is 'horrified' by video of police shooting
By Sharon Bernstein
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Video showing the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man holding a cellphone in Sacramento, California, left the city's mayor "horrified," the official said on Thursday, as protesters gathered to denounce the shooting.
Police in California's capital released video footage late on Wednesday of the shooting death of Stephon Clark, 22, on Sunday night. The shooting followed a report of car windows being broken in the area.
"Like any compassionate person, I was horrified by the death of a young Sacramento man who we later found out had two kids," Mayor Darrell Steinberg said at a news conference.
"What was my reaction? It was horrible," he added.
Demonstrators with the Black Lives Matter movement protested Clark's death on Thursday, with organizers describing the shooting death of black people by police as disturbingly common.
Shouting: “It’s a phone, not a gun," protesters marched into the city hall lobby.
Tami Collins, 47, was among about several dozen protesters. "I have four grandbabies who are black and I don't want them taken," said Collins, who is white.
A series of killings of unarmed black men by police since 2014 has generated protests and put law enforcement agencies across the United States under scrutiny over their use of lethal force.
Officers responded to a report that someone had broken car windows in a residential area, Sacramento police said in a statement. Police later found at least three damaged vehicles
Deputies in a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department helicopter saw a suspect shatter the sliding glass door of a house and then jump a fence to enter the yard of another house, police said.
Police released infrared video from the helicopter that showed the man hop the fence.
Other video from police body cameras shows two officers run after Clark with their flashlights and turn the corner of the house to face him in the backyard, yelling: "Show me your hands" and "gun" before they shoot him multiple times.
The officers had seen Clark "advance forward with his arms extended and holding an object," which they believed was a gun, before they opened fire, police said.
After the shooting, investigators found a cellphone near Clark, but no firearm, police said.
The shooting was in the backyard of Clark's grandparents home, where he had been staying, according to the Sacramento Bee newspaper, which spoke to Clark's relatives.
The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office is investigating the shooting. Sacramento police could not be reached for comment.
(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles)
