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posted by janrinok on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the protect-and-serve dept.

Unarmed Man in His Backyard Shot From Behind 7 Times By Cops

The World Socialist Web Site reports

On Friday [March 30], the results of an independent autopsy requested by Stephon Clark's family were released to the public, confirming that police shot the unarmed 22-year-old African-American man seven times in the back and side amid a volley of gunfire in his grandparents' backyard.

The incident began when two police officers responding to a report of someone breaking car windows confronted Clark on March 18. Body camera footage shows that, without identifying themselves, police demanded Clark put his hands up and chased him into his grandparents' backyard. At that point, one of the officers yelled "Gun!" and the two fired 20 shots at Clark, who was holding his cell phone in one hand.

The officers, identified as Terrence Mercadel and Jared Robinet, stood pointing their guns at Clark's corpse for several minutes until backup arrived, then handcuffed his body and made a perfunctory attempt to resuscitate Clark before pronouncing him dead. The officers then turned off their microphones for several minutes, presumably to get their stories straight off the record.

Autopsy results released by a private medical examiner hired by the family's attorney show that [the bullets of] Mercadel and Robinet [hit] Clark a total of eight times. Dr. Bennet Omalu's analysis found that Clark was shot four times in the lower back, twice in the neck, once under an armpit, and once in the front of his thigh.

"You could reasonably conclude that he received seven gunshot wounds from his back", Dr. Omalu told a press conference Friday adding that any one of those would have been fatal on its own. The doctor described extensive damage to Clark's body from the torrent of bullets, which resulted in a collapsed lung and a shattered vertebra.

Dr. Omalu also told reporters that Clark did not die immediately from his injuries but lived another three to 10 minutes after he was shot. He noted that, while it is impossible to say whether Clark would have survived had he received medical attention sooner, "every minute you wait decreases probability of survival." According to video released by the Sacramento Police Department, six minutes elapsed between the firing of the final bullet and the time CPR was administered to Clark's dead body.

The results further discredit the police narrative that Mercadel and Robinet believed Clark posed a danger to their safety and was moving in a menacing manner toward the officers when they gunned him down. In a statement, Clark family attorney Benjamin Crump wrote: "These findings from the independent autopsy contradict the police narrative that we've been told. This independent autopsy affirms that Stephon was not a threat to police and was slain in another senseless police killing under increasingly questionable circumstances."

Body Cam Video of Alton Sterling Killing Released; Officer Sacked

CBC reports

The videos, released Friday as Baton Rouge's police chief announced the firing of the white officer who shot Sterling six times, came days after the state attorney general declined to bring criminal charges against the two officers involved in the incident.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 03 2018, @03:38PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 03 2018, @03:38PM (#661993) Journal

    If you use that criteria to determine whether to fire an employee, then very, very, VERY few firings are justifiable. No district attorney wanted to get involved in any firing in which I had a part - either when I fired someone, or when I got fired.

    Alright, I can hear someone whining already, "But you're not a POLICE OFFICER, Runaway!"

    So what? A cop can fail to carry out his duties properly, without violating a law so blatantly that he must be prosecuted. That almost-unlimited immunity crap gets in the way of justice, I can understand that. You can successfully prosecute the sumbitch for his crimes, I got it. But, how does that preclude his being fired? Reckless disregard for human life is far more than enough reason for anyone to be fired - and moreso a cop. We don't want or need this asshole carrying a gun, and representing we the people. Can his ass, and be done with it.

    Next question in this discussion: When do we begin to reign in that almost-unlimited immunity bullshit? Cops can do damned near anything they like, so long as they remember to kiss up to the right people at the station.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Tuesday April 03 2018, @05:43PM

    by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday April 03 2018, @05:43PM (#662050)

    Impression I get is it's mostly the police union. Pay your union dues and you get blue-line protection. Don't and you'll be used as a scapegoat for the others.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek