Mourners seek justice for Clark amid outrage

Hundreds of mourners joined black and Muslim leaders at a church in California’s capital on Thursday for the funeral of Stephon Clark, a black father of two whose shooting death by the police 11 days ago has touched off protests around the country and opened a new rift of public anger about the use of force by police and treatment of minorities.

The approximately 300 people who packed the Bayside of South Sacramento Church were joined by an overflow crowd of some 600 who waited in the midday sun outside. And although they had come to grieve, the anger and tension that have spilled over into NBA basketball games and city council meetings at times simmered beneath the surface.

It was visible on the face of Clark’s brother, Stevante, who threw himself on his brother’s coffin as the ceremony began and later interrupted speakers from the NAACP to lead mourners in loud chants of his brother’s name.

Speaking during the funeral, Dallas-based imam Omar Suleiman noted that Clark, whom police shot at 20 times, “had almost as many bullets put into him as the years he’s been on this Earth.” Clark, 22, converted to Islam several years before his death

The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered a eulogy that encouraged protesters and slapped back the assertion made by the White House that Clark’s death was a “local issue.”

“No, this is not a local matter,” Sharpton said. “They’ve been killing young black men all over the country.”

Stevante Clark, who this week interrupted a City Council meeting with a group of protesters by jumping on a platform where Mayor Darrell Steinberg was sitting and telling him to “shut up,” took a different tone when he spoke at the funeral. He called on mourners to “forgive the mayor,” and after the service left the funeral with Steinberg.