Pathologist: Clark shot eight times, mostly in his back
Stephon Clark, the unarmed 22-year-old killed by Sacramento police officers earlier this month, was shot eight times, with most of the bullets hitting him in the back, according to an independent autopsy requested by his family’s attorneys.
Bullets struck Clark in the neck, back and thigh, breaking bones and piercing his lung, said Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist. The bullets combined to make Clark “bleed massively,” Omalu said.
“His death wasn’t instantaneous,” Omalu, who is best known for his role in highlighting concussive damage to football players, said at a news conference Friday. Instead, Omalu said, “Death took about three to 10 minutes.”
Omalu announced his findings amid continuing public anger over Clark’s death. A day earlier, hundreds of mourners gathered to grieve for Clark at an emotional funeral that alluded to the tensions lingering in the community.
Clark, a black man and a father of two, was fatally shot on March 18 by Sacramento police officers. Police in the California capital said they were responding that night to a call about someone breaking into vehicles.
The shooting was captured on footage recorded by body cameras and a helicopter video. This footage showed Clark running to the backyard of his grandmother’s house, where officers fired 20 times at him.
Officials have not said how many times they believe Clark was struck.
The officers said they fired thinking Clark had a gun, but police have since said he was holding only an iPhone.
Omalu said that Clark “was not facing the officers” when he was killed. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Clark’s family who spoke before Omalu on Friday, said the autopsy findings contradicted the police narrative of Clark’s death.
The Sacramento police declined to comment on Omalu’s findings and Crump’s statement, saying it “would be inappropriate” to do so before the release of the county coroner’s report and the conclusion of the ongoing investigations into the shooting.
“We acknowledge the importance of this case to all in our community and we are committed to a thorough and comprehensive investigation,” the Sacramento police said in a statement.
The Sacramento police said the department had not been given the county coroner’s official report. The county coroner’s office did not respond to messages seeking details on Clark’s autopsy or its findings earlier Friday. County records showed only the date of Clark’s death and described him as a 22-yearold black man.
According to Omalu, six of the eight shots that hit Clark struck him in the back, while a seventh bullet hit him “slightly to the side of his body, but to the back of the side.”
“You could reasonably conclude that he received seven gunshot wounds from his back,” said Omalu, who conducted his autopsy on Tuesday and finished his report Wednesday. Omalu said all seven of these bullets could have been fatal on their own.
An eighth bullet that struck Clark in the thigh suggested that the 22-yearold “was either on the ground or falling close to the ground” when that shot hit him, Omalu said.