SACRAMENTO, CA — Prosecutors declined to file charges against two Sacramento police officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark last year. Clark, 22, was unarmed when he was killed in his grandmother’s Meadowview backyard. His death ignited a slew of protests and led Clark’s family to demand an independent autopsy of his body.
On Saturday, the city’s district attorney announced that the officers who killed him, Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet, would not be prosecuted.
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District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert told reporters at a press conference Saturday Clark’s death was a tragedy, not only for the family but for the community as a whole.
“I can certainly understand that there is tremendous grief, anger and anxiety by the Clark family and by this community,” she said, adding that she met with the Clarks and that grief was evident.
Schubert said it’s her job to review the facts and the law and decide whether a crime was committed. The police officers had probable cause to stop and apprehend Clark, she said. The officers were also justified to use deadly force, so long as they feared for bodily harm or death.
“We must recognize that they are often forced to make split-second decisions,” she said. “We must also recognize that they are under tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving circumstances.”
Witnesses told investigators Clark had been breaking into cars through the windows. When confronted by a neighbor, he hopped a fence and ran off. Police were called and began investigating the area, prosecutors said. The officers did not know Clark was in his grandmother’s backyard at the time.
Mercadal and Robinet acted lawfully when they shot Clark seven times, Schubert concluded. She said evidence supported their version of events that Clark moved toward them before they started shooting. The officers’ both said they thought Clark was pointing a gun.
But it wasn’t a gun. It was a cellphone.
Furthermore, the official autopsy of Clark’s body conflicted with an independent examiner’s findings. The official autopsy found cocaine, codeine and marijuana in Clark’s system, though the substances weren’t related to his cause of death, according to Dr. Gregory Reiber, an independent forensic pathologist hired to review the findings.
On Saturday, Schubert, the district attorney, brought up troubling details of Clark’s past. He faced possible jail time stemming from a domestic violence allegation two days earlier from the mother of his children. He’d also searched how to kill himself, including by using a tranquilizer.
“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 family blasted the district attorney for revealing what they saw as facts unrelated to his killing, The Associated Press reported.
“Whatever his character is or his actions prior to those officers gunning him down, is no one’s business,” said Clark’s mother, SeQuette. “It’s not justification. That’s not a permit to kill him.”
The shooting on March 18, 2018, sparked massive protests throughout the city.