Unarmed African American shot at 20x and murderd by Police

Mitchell

Sacramento Police Shot Unarmed Black Man in His Yard 20 Times

http://time.com/5209780/stephan-alonzo-clark-sacramento-police-shooting/

Officers say they mistook Stephon Clark’s cellphone for a gun.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/21/17149092/stephon-clark-police-shooting-sacramento

Mitchell

According to the first article

The officers who fired are taken to the street, where someone says “Hey mute” and the audio cuts out. The video continues without sound for about two minutes as the officers talk.

Why did the Officers mute their audio?

according to the 2nd article:

Police officers were purportedly responding to reports of a man breaking car windows.

Yet, so far no evidence/photos of broken windows have been released. And, whenever (or if) such evidence is ever released then evidence of Mr. Clark's involvement and motive will need to be proven. And, even if proven it does not justify the killing of an unarmed man.

Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

Don't get me wrong I personally think Mr. Clark made some bad decisions:
(a) Being out at night
(b) apparent fleeing from the Police and through a neighbors yard
(c) turning toward the police with an object in his hand
(d) acting in a suspicious manner although most likely having knowledge of the paranoid trigger happy nature of the police force.

However, none of the above is deserving of the death penalty

GaoLu

Another unimaginably unjustifiable, heart-wrenching case.

When I was a teenager, I ran home to get some games to play with our teen group. I was surprised to see the porch light on and the door open. Had I left it open? Unconcerned, I ran up the steps, threw the door open and stood face to face with a stranger holding something in his hand. My mind said "gun." I don't think I really thought. Shooting him was not on my radar. I did yell and he took off running out a back garage door. I chased him a hundred feet or so, having no idea what I might do if I caught him. He headed out through the woods with his flashlight, so I let him go, locked the house and went to play games with my friends.

No one died that night.

[Deleted User]

@Mitchell said:
Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

that principle is not in effect any longer ...

Don't get me wrong I personally think Mr. Clark made some bad decisions:
(a) Being out at night

Has the USA become a place where it is a bad decision to be out at night?

(b) apparent fleeing from the Police and through a neighbors yard
(c) turning toward the police with an object in his hand
(d) acting in a suspicious manner although most likely having knowledge of the paranoid trigger happy nature of the police force.

"a paranoid trigger nature police" describes rather well the situation ... I am surprised it does not dawn on many USA citizens that in recent decades the police has been trained to actually be a military force and act as soldiers are trained to act in combat ... the citizens being the enemy.

However, none of the above is deserving of the death penalty

Since when is the police empowered to hand out death sentence and immediately execute the sentence by firing squad?

Mitchell

@Wolfgang said:
that principle is not in effect any longer ...

If true that is a sad and highly regrettable turn of events, but it probably is the case.

@Wolfgang said:
Has the USA become a place where it is a bad decision to be out at night?

Since cops started killing unarmed individuals, of course, they can do so during the day, but during the day there will probably be more eyewitnesses and more people around with cameras/smartphones.

@Wolfgang said:
"a paranoid trigger nature police" describes rather well the situation ... I am surprised it does not dawn on many USA citizens that in recent decades the police has been trained to actually be a military force and act as soldiers are trained to act in combat ... the citizens being the enemy.

I am surprised as well

Since when is the police empowered to hand out death sentence and immediately execute the sentence by firing squad?

Probably since 1999 when the NYC police officers mistook Amadou Diallo for a rapist, falsely claimed he had a gun (he only had a wallet), shot at him 41 times, killed him and then were somehow acquitted of murder. That basically set the precedent that allows cops murder innocent people and then be acquitted by claiming they felt threatened.