Autopsy Shows Police Shot Unarmed Man Stephon Clark 8 Times

[DonViejo]

Source: Yahoo News


Sebastian Murdock, HuffPost•March 30, 2018

Stephon Clark, the 22-year-old father of two who was unarmed when he was fatally shot by police in California earlier this month, was hit eight times, an independent autopsy shows.

On March 18, two Sacramento Police Department officers responded to reports of someone smashing car windows in Clark’s neighborhood. At approximately 9:30 p.m., they opened fire on Clark outside his home, shooting at him 20 times. Lawyers for Clark’s family held a press conference Friday to announce the findings of a private autopsy.

Dr. Bennet Omalu, who conducted the three-hour autopsy, told reporters that Clark was struck eight times. Six of the bullets hit Clark directly in the back, with a seventh hitting him in the side of his back, Omalu said.

“You could reasonably conclude that he received seven gunshot wounds from his back,” Omalu said. An eighth bullet hit Clark in the arm.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/autopsy-shows-police-shot-unarmed-180400487.html?soc_trk=gcm&soc_src=6d5f98a9-30da-3e21-bf79-2d16fde5d3d4&.tsrc=notification-brknews

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Has anyone ever gathered information on the military service of officers involved in these shootings

I'm very curious how many LEO's involved in these types of shootings are Iraq/Afghanistan vets, and might be suffering from undiagnosed PTSD, and thus likely to overreact in these types of situations.

You would think this would be screened for in the hiring process, but I'd like to know either way.

[Igel]

4. Are you saying that people who have

lived through stressful situations like shootings and who might have PTSD lack sound judgment?

I mean, it's been said before and it's often true. But in this political environment, that's a risky thing to say. The appropriate thing to say is that because of what they went through, they have a *better* sense of what's appropriate. Otherwise you're either blaming the victims or saying that they're in some way less able because of trauma.

(Full disclosure: I think both generalizations are wrong, and that the possibility of PTSD and having undergone through trauma is neither obligatorily ennobling or disabling.)

[Tiggeroshii]

6. From what I understand there are much fewer involved in these shootings.

Military training generally helps prevent shootings like this, through our training with rules of engagement

[Mr.Bill]

10. What would interest me more

is for them to be drug tested for steroids or how many energy drinks they guzzled during their shifts whenever incidents like this happened.

[EL34x4]

14. Actually, it's the opposite.

Many LEOs who are military veterans are less likely to be involved in these types of shootings.

They'd be in Leavenworth for some of the killings that civilian LEOs get away with.

Interesting article but sad story over at NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/08/504718239/military-trained-police-may-be-slower-to-shoot-but-that-got-this-vet-fired

[Fiendish Thingy]

15. Military vet LEO's as a whole are less likely involved in these type of shootings, however

What about military vet LEO's with PTSD? Has that subgroup been measured?

I get that vets are better trained and more likely to show restraint, but as you may know the effects of PTSD can outweigh the experience of training. In particular, there is a portion of the vets from Iraq/Afghanistan who were subject to stop-loss, and did multiple tours of duty before returning stateside and allowed to return to civilian life.

[EL34x4]

16. How many clinically-diagnosed PTSD vets became police officers?

Is it even a high enough number to warrant a study?

[Fiendish Thingy]

17. Well, I guess that's my main query.

I believe it's been established that because of stop-loss, there were a higher than average percentage of vets with PTSD from the Iraq/Afghanistan wars.

I've also read that a high percentage of LEO's are vets, especially those who started their careers in the past decade. I'm genuinely curious if there's a correlation.

[genxlib]

2. That is the real life Doctor from the Movie Concussion

that was played by Will Smith.

[procon]

3. What else might the cops have hit when they fired into a residential neighborhood?

Homes, cars, moms and dads, sleeping kids, pets, everything was in the line of fire because police imagined a cell phone to be a gun. Supposedly they were chasing someone for vandalism, hardly a capital crime that warranted another extrajudicial murder. Guns drawn before they shot a man in the back 7 times -- cue the official, and all too familiar refrain -- when he was facing away from them. If this the goal of modern police training then it's gone terribly off the rails and multiple levels.

[olddad56]

5. so, they fired 20 shots from relatively close range and only 8 hit a good sized target.

maybe the police need to get better training.

In my opinion, one shot fired over the head, or towards the feet of the victim would have gotten his attention.

Easy to second guess, because I wasn't there, and I wasn't in the police officers situation, but this type of tragedy is happening too often.

Also this week, in Sacramento, a drug crazed murder was sentenced to death for killing two police officers. I can see why the cops would be pretty anxious in these type of situations, but I think this situation didn't call for 20 shots to be fired. How many people could have been killed by the 12 stray bullets.

This just didn't have to happen.

[Angry Dragon]

7. things like this make me sick

[riversedge]

8. Reuters: Autopsy on black Californian contradicts police: lawyer

March 30, 2018 / 3:39 AM / Updated 5 minutes ago
Autopsy on black Californian contradicts police: lawyer



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-police/autopsy-on-black-californian-contradicts-police-lawyer-idUSKBN1H60P0
Sharon Bernstein

4 Min Read

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - An autopsy on an unarmed black man killed by police officers in California’s capital last week shows that all eight bullets hit him in the back, side or leg, contradicting the official version of events, a lawyer for the deceased’s family said on Friday.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the family of Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old African-American killed in Sacramento on March 18, said the findings refuted statements by police that the man had been moving toward officers when they fired.

“This independent autopsy affirms that Stephon was not a threat to police and was slain in another senseless police killing under increasingly questionable circumstances,” Crump said in a statement.

Clark’s death was the most recent in a string of fatal shootings of black men by police that have triggered protests across the United States and fueled a national debate about bias in the American criminal justice system.

A representative of the Sacramento Police Department could not immediately be reached for comment.

None of the bullets fired by the officers entered Clark’s body from the front, a forensic pathologist said on Friday after the autopsy conducted at the request of the dead man’s family.
...............

[riversedge]

9. Helicaptor video here...

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/22/596051907/video-shows-sacramento-police-shoot-unarmed-black-man-in-grandparents-backyard

[IronLionZion]

11. This never happens to white guys holding assault rifles

only black guys with dangerous assault cell phones make officers fear for their lives in a way that causes 8 non-lethal wounds but totally wasn't an instant public execution. Dying after that was just an unfortunate coincidence since guns don't kill people, good guys with guns kill people.

[DeminPennswoods]

12. The US Supreme Court gave police a license to kill

because of their ruling that it's not homicide if police believe they fear for their lives. Every cop who's involved in one of these incidents always claims they feared for their life because that's the standard the Supreme Court set. Until this ruling is reversed or further clarified, cops will continue to be absolved.

I also believe that's well past the point where law enforcement officers should have to pass psychological tests as part of employment screening. Then, once hired, they should be continuously re-assessed by random re-testing.

[Blue_Tires]

13. MURDER