Omalu: Police shot Clark from behind
Forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu, performing independent autopsy for Clark’s family, says the Sacramento man was shot six times in the back
SACRAMENTO — Stephon Clark, the unarmed African-American man whose shooting by police has caused protests and national outcry, was shot six times in the back, an independent forensic pathologist said Friday.
Dr. Bennet Omalu conducted an autopsy days after Clark was killed by police. He told reporters that his examination showed that Clark was hit by eight bullets, and all but one entered while his back was turned toward police.
One bullet entered Clark’s left thigh from the front and was probably fired while he was on the ground and had already been shot multiple times, Omalu said.
“That he was assailing the officers, meaning he was facing the officers, is inconsistent with the prevailing forensic evidence” as documented in the autopsy, he said.
The county coroner’s official autopsy results are not expected to be completed for several weeks.
Clark, 22, was fatally shot in his grandmother’s backyard on March 18 by Sacramento police, who were looking for a vandal in the neighborhood. More than 20 shots were fired.
Clark was found with a cellphone. No weapon was recovered.
The independent autopsy finding raises new questions about Clark’s shooting. Police have released videos showing the incident but have urged the public not to pass judgment on officers until the investigation is complete.
“It’s very simple. The narrative that’s been put forth is they had to open fire because he was charging toward them,” said civil rights litigator Ben Crump, who is representing Clark’s family. Yet the autopsy shows, Crump said, “all of the bullets were from behind.”
Omalu said it appeared that the coroner did not seek to determine the pathway of the bullets, key to determining their sequence.
A “cluster” of bullets that entered Clark’s back decimated his body, each carrying “fatal capacity,” Omalu said.
One round fractured Clark’s right arm, shattering a section of bone into bits that completely lacer-
ated all the blood vessels around the wound, he said, and another cut through Clark’s flesh and hit his spinal cord, where it caused massive bleeding.
A round went under Clark’s rib, piercing his lung and caused massive bleeding in his chest, Omalu said. Another injured his aorta.
The combination of trauma, bleeding and a punctured lung would have cut off oxygen to Clark’s brain but he did not die instantly, Omalu said. It took several minutes, he said.
Omalu was brought in by lawyers for Clark’s family in preparation for a planned federal lawsuit against the city and its police officers. He resigned last year as chief forensic pathologist in neighboring San Joaquin County, citing allegations the sheriff there sought to sway findings to protect officers responsible for fatal shootings. Others in Omalu’s office also quit, but the sheriff denied the allegations.
Clark’s family has disputed police accounts of what led to the shooting, which sparked days of protests in the state capitol and made
national headlines. Another march is called for Saturday, to be led by retired NBA player Matt Barnes, a Sacramento native who once played for the Sacramento Kings and the Lakers.
Clark was buried after a funeral in Sacramento on Thursday attended by hundreds of mourners, including the Rev. Al Sharpton.
“We are here to say that we’re going to stand with Stephon Clark and the leaders of this family . ... This is about justice,” Sharpton said. “This is about standing with people with courage.”
Clark’s shooting is under investigation by city police, with oversight by the state Department of Justice.
Sacramento’s mayor has called Clark’s death “wrong,” but said he cannot pass judgment on the officers’ actions until that review is complete.
On Wednesday, a police spokesman said Clark remained the sole suspect in break-ins of vehicles and what a sheriff’s deputy said was the attempted break-in of a home. It was a call about those incidents that sent police to the neighborhood the night Clark was shot.