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The shooting death of unarmed Black California man Stephon Clark at the hands of Sacramento police has sparked a flurry of renewed debate over the use of force by authorities. In a family-ordered autopsy, it was revealed that Clark was shot eight times, mostly in the back region, adding a new layer to the still-developing case.
The New York Times writes:
The autopsy — commissioned by the family of Mr. Clark, 22, and conducted by Dr. Bennet Omalu, a private medical examiner — showed that he was shot three times in his lower back, twice near his right shoulder, once in his neck and once under an armpit. He was also shot in the leg. The neck wound was from the side, the doctor found, and he said that while the shot to the leg hit Mr. Clark in the front, it appeared to have been fired after he was already falling
“He was shot from the back,” Dr. Omalu said Friday at a news conference. Standing next to diagrams of the findings, he said that seven of the shots could have had a “fatal capacity.” He described severe damage to Mr. Clark’s body, including a shattered vertebrae, a collapsed lung and an arm broken into “tiny bits.”
“He bled massively,” said Dr. Omalu, who became nationally known for his fight with the National Football League over head injuries to its players.
Dr. Omalu said he believed the first bullet to hit Mr. Clark on his side caused him to turn, so he was facing away from the officers when they fired the barrage of bullets.
Protests in Sacramento raged over the weekend, and a woman was struck by a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department vehicle. She is currently listed in stable condition. The city and police officials have yet to respond to the findings of Dr. Omalu.
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Photo: Getty
