Last March, Sacramento was turned upside down and hasn’t been the same since. On March 18, 2018, the unarmed Stephon Clark was shot and killed by Sacramento police officers. And ever since, through march after march, the trial, and it’s just-passed one-year its anniversary, Sacramento is different.
Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old African American man, a father of two, native to Sacramento, was brutally and unlawfully murdered by Terrance Mercadal and Jared Robinet in his grandmother’s backyard.
It’s been an entire year since the incident and Sacramentans haven’t stopped demanding justice for Clark and police accountability. And, with the recent release by the District Attorney’s Office on March 2nd, 2019, the dream for police accountability continues to be forced out of reach by not pressing any charges against the officers.
Stephon Clark was not an innocent man. With felonies for domestic violence, drug abuse, loitering, and more, Clark was anything but innocent. But he didn’t deserve to die the way he did.
While Clark definitely deserved to be detained, possibly even jailed, it wasn’t because of his whereabouts that fateful Sunday night. Mercadal and Robinet were not aware of Stephon Clark’s criminal history and instead killed him because of the mirage of a gun they seemed to see and, more importantly, because of the color of his skin.
It’s scarier to me, knowing I live in a city with men like Mercadal and Robinet who are supposed to devote their lives to be protecting us and our city from men like Stephon Clark, rather than anything else.
The killing of Stephon Clark was criminal and the fact that his killers have the freedom to walk around our great city, free and uncharged, is horrific. Stephon Clark deserves justice. Stephon Clark’s children deserve justice. And most of all, Sacramento deserves justice.