'They executed him': police killing of Stephon Clark leaves family shattered
“They gunned him down
like a dog,” Stevante Clark said of the police shooting of his brother,
Stephon. “They executed him.” Stevante was in the
backseat of a car, his voice quivering. He stomped his feet 20 times – one for
each bullet that police fired at his unarmed brother. “Twenty
times. That’s
like stepping on a roach ... And then stepping, stepping, stepping, stepping,
stepping, stepping, stepping.”
The fatal shooting of
Stephon Clark on 18 March by Sacramento police has sparked outrage and massive
protests in the California capital, drawing comparisons with other cases of
law enforcement killing unarmed black people, such as Oscar
Grant, Michael
Brown and Eric
Garner.
Stephon, an unarmed
22-year-old father of two, was standing in his grandmother’s backyard, holding
only his iPhone when officers, who did not announce they were police, appeared
in the dark, shouted at him to reveal his hands and quickly fired a round of
bullets at him before he could respond. His brother, Stevante,
25, has been thrust into the national spotlight and forced to navigate media,
protests, lawyers and donations while
struggling through his own grief and anger.
“I shouldn’t have to
defend my brother. They should be proving their innocence,” Stevante told the
Guardian on Sunday night, during an interview in his friend’s car. “I’m
exhausted. I hate this. I hate my life.” At a time when debates
about gun laws are dominating the news – surrounding the March
for Our Lives rallies organized by
Florida students – the killing by California police has served as a
harsh reminder that law enforcement fatally
shoot hundreds of Americans each year, many more than those who die
in mass shootings... read more:
