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."
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.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:37PM (5 children)
I'm in Australia... during WWII there were race riots among the US forces stationed here ie.Brisbane. Later in the war a child who later became a workmate of my fathers saw a black servicemen gunned down, apparently because he came into town to go to a cinema - my fathers friend ran all the way home. In the next city (Townsville) there was a massacre of a large number of black troops, and I believe Lyndon Johnson (or some other Senator who went on to become president) had to come out to calm things down.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:40PM
Documentary on the subject [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:53PM (2 children)
Oops... wrong link, but probably a good excuse to go to exactly the right place : here.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pav on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:57PM (1 child)
*sigh* This is the report of the black GI killings during WWII [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday April 04 2018, @12:17AM
Most of my days are like that, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday April 03 2018, @10:03PM
Reports of black GIs killed by white MPs during WWII [youtube.com]. Never had so much trouble posting a simple link... *sigh*