Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Stephon Clark was shot eight times — including seven times in the back, according to a private autopsy ordered by the family.
Civil Right Attorney Benjamin Crump released an independent autopsy report in the police shooting death of Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old black man who was shot at 20 times by Sacramento officers in his grandmother’s backyard.
The other two bullets hit Clark in the neck and the left side of his body. The only bullet that struck him from the front was the one on the left side of his body.
The private autopsy was performed by Dr. Bennet Omalu, known for his work in discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
“The narrative that had been put forth was that they had to open fire because he was charging at them,” Crump said during a news conference Friday. “Well obviously based on Dr. Omalu’s findings in the family’s autopsy it suggests all the bullets were from behind.”
On March 18, officers were responding to a 911 call reporting someone breaking car windows in the 7500 block of 29th street.
Police found Clark in the backyard and believed Clark was armed with a gun and fired, “fearing for their safety.”
No gun was found at the scene. Police said the object was a cell phone.
The Sacramento police department released the body camera footage and helicopter footage three days after the shooting.
California’s attorney general and the police department are conducting an investigation into what happened that night.
The shooting sparked widespread protests in California and New York and responses from Black Lives Matter, the NAACP and the Sacramento Kings basketball team.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about the fatal police shooting of Stephon Clark at a White House briefing on Wednesday.
She described the shooting as a “terrible incident” but also said that the problem is “something we feel should be left up to local authorities.”
Sanders went on to add: “The president is very supportive of law enforcement. But at the same time, in these specific cases and these specific instances, those will be left up to local authorities to make that determination and not something for the federal government to weigh into.”
Clark was laid to rest on Thursday, at a public service that was held at BOSS church in south Sacramento.
The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy.
“This is a national fight. Stephon has woke up the nation. We all stand with Stephon Clark,” Sharpton said to the crowd. “We are going to make Donald Trump and the whole world deal with the issue of police misconduct.
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