After the announcement, Jamilia Land, a close family friend of the Clarks, told The Washington Post she was not surprised by the decision. She called the news conference a “smear campaign” against Clark.
"It’s what is to be expected, a smear campaign on the deceased person’s life before inflicting the final wound of ‘there will be no charges,’ " Land said in a phone interview Saturday afternoon. “We live in a country where if we have a young white shooter who’s gone in and killed a slew of people, there are de-escalation tactics used. . . . That is a part of the outrage we feel in the African American community.”
During the interview, Land abruptly excused herself, then called back shortly afterward, sobbing, to say paramedics were taking Clark’s grandmother to the hospital. She had already been under extreme stress since Clark’s death, and the events of the day had been “too much,” Land said.
“The anxiety and waiting to hear this news, the fact that he’s gone and there’s no coming back and there’s no justice,” Land said. “It’s literally breaking her heart. It’s killing all of us. We want to stop being killed! We’re tired of being gunned down senselessly. Our lives matter.”
Ben Crump and Dale Galipo, attorneys for the Clark family, vowed to pursue justice through the civil courts.
“The key and inescapable fact that the DA failed to even acknowledge is that Stephon was shot in the back multiple times,” Crump said in a statement. “If he was advancing on the officers, why was he shot in the back and the side? Why were 20 shots fired, striking him eight times, even while falling to the ground and while on the ground? These facts cannot be reconciled with the DA’s narrative that the officers were in fear of their lives.”
The decision not to charge the officers was not a surprise for some. In emails sent earlier this week, lawmakers were urged to avoid California’s Capitol during the weekend, while downtown Sacramento business owners were advised to prepare for protests, the Sacramento Bee reported, leading to speculation that the district attorney’s decision might upset the community.
At a news conference later Saturday evening, Clark’s girlfriend, Salena Manni, said, “My boys Aidan and Cairo have to grow up without their father, and I have to continue on as a single parent without Stephon.” Manni paused frequently to weep as she spoke to reporters. “Please don’t stop advocating for legislation and policies that could protect other families from suffering this overwhelming pain and immense sense of loss,” she said.
Shortly after the news conference, the Sacramento chapter of Black Lives Matter tweeted for supporters to “COME THRU NOW!!!!” and listed the address of Sacramento police headquarters.
By early evening, a few dozen protesters had gathered in the rain-drenched parking lot of the police station. Some protesters held a Black Lives Matter banner that read, “We must love and support one another.” Others held signs that read “Fire! Charge! Convict!,” “Honk for justice” and “Stop killing our kids!”
“Nothing is being done,” 23-year-old Breanna Martin, of south Sacramento, told the crowd. “You saw today what happened. Nothing happens.”
After Martin spoke, she walked off to a corner of the parking lot. Others followed. Martin began to cry and hugged the other protesters.
As a round of speeches ended, a protester headed to the middle of the circle and burned a black-and-white American flag that featured a thin blue line across the center, a pro-police symbol. Some protesters, posing for a photo in front of the police station doors, gave a middle finger to officers lined up inside behind the glass.
“No one should die over a broken window,” said Victor Brazelton, 39, of Sacramento. “Cops shouldn’t have more rights than the people.”
Deon Taylor, 45, of Sacramento came to the rally with his family. He said he wanted to show his 14-year-old daughter, Milan, what it means to be black in America. He said he hoped more young people would choose to become police officers and patrol their own neighborhoods, where they know who people are and how to ask the right questions.
The American Civil Liberties Union called for “immediate reform” of California’s law on the use of deadly force after the district attorney’s announcement.
“No family should have to live through what Mr. Clark’s family is going through: first traumatized by a system of policing that violently and unjustly takes the lives of unarmed Black men at alarming rates and retraumatized again by a justice system that is set up to sanction these unnecessary killings,” Lizzie Buchen, legislative advocate for the ACLU of the California Center for Advocacy and Policy, said in a statement.
Clark’s family members have been advocating for the passage of Assembly Bill 392, which would establish clearer use-of-force guidelines, including mandating that police use de-escalation tactics whenever possible.
The Sacramento Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg said in an interview last year that he was “extremely conscious” of the concerns many have expressed regarding police accountability in recent years. “There is deep pain and anguish” in Sacramento, he said. “It’s our job to bear some of that pain and to help translate the anguish and grieving and the historic pain [of black communities] into tangible and real change.”
Just under 1,000 people are shot and killed by police officers each year, according to The Washington Post’s database. A handful of those shootings lead to criminal charges, and convictions are even more rare, which has prompted intense criticism from civil rights activists across the country.
Mark Berman and Alex Horton contributed to this report.
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