‘A bad feeling’
For Clark, the day Webber was killed felt strange from the moment she woke up early for work and looked out her front window.
The sun was rising and her block was still quiet. An AT&T work truck parked near the end of her driveway caught her eye and she didn’t see anyone working near it.
Immediately, she she had “a bad feeling” in her gut and started to question if it might be undercover officers watching her home, there to arrest Webber, the oldest of her three sons, for selling marijuana.
She called Webber several times that day to check on him and left work early to make sure nothing was amiss at home. When she arrived, she was relieved to see Webber parked in her driveway. The AT&T truck was still there.
After about 90 minutes passed uneventfully, Clark decided to make the quick drive to the convenience store at the end of her street for two cans of Coca-cola about 6:30 p.m.
As she drove with her radio on, she didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. But as she was standing in line to check out, another customer came inside and asked if anyone else had heard the gunfire.
A barrage of bullets had just been fired at the house on the corner.
‘Mama go’
Clark was back home in seconds. She saw a wall of unmarked SUVS and pickup trucks blocking her view of the car Webber was sitting in when she left just minutes earlier.
Her middle son was lying handcuffed in the street, his bare chest against the hot asphalt amid the summer sun. She yelled to him to make sure he wasn’t hurt.
Then she yelled “Brandon” only twice. She was met first with silence then with the voice of her middle son who, even handcuffed in the street, wanted to keep his mother from seeing what happened to his brother.
“He wasn’t crying,” Clark said. “He just had a real sorrowful look. He was like ‘mama leave, mama go.’”
When Clark identified herself, a Memphis police officer at the scene quickly whisked her away. Clark said she was made to sit in a police cruiser that was parked several houses down and behind a wooden fence cutting off her view of the scene.
She said she looked at the clock as the officer walked away. It was 6:45 p.m. Though she was not under arrest, she was not released – not even to use the restroom – until 4:30 a.m. the next day. Her middle son was not arrested either, though he too was detained until the early hours of the next morning.
Even before anyone confirmed that Webber had died, Clark said she knew. She could feel it.
‘A slap in the face’
Webber’s father, Sonny Webber, was the only one in the family to see his son’s body the day he was killed. Clark had called him and Parker from inside the police car.
While the law enforcement vehicles blocked most of the view from the street. Sonny Webber could see through the hedges separating Clark’s yard from the neighbor.
“I walked in the yard and straight to the fence and I seen my baby laying there,” Sonny Webber said. “I seen my son laying there with his head open ... I just lost everything. I couldn’t stand. They had to tote me out of that yard.”
That night, unrest broke out on the street. People threw rocks and bricks at police and marshals and journalists. Several Memphis Police Department officers were injured, though none seriously.
MPD used tear gas to break up the crowd.
Months later, Sonny Webber was arrested on charges of aggravated rioting and aggravated assault.
“For me, it’s like a slap in the face every time I have to go to court because I’m the only one that’s been charged with inciting a riot on that day,” Sonny Webber said, emphasizing that no marshals were charged in the death of his son. “The same feelings that’s going on around the world that’s happening right now with brother George Floyd, that’s the same feelings everybody had when Brandon got killed.
“For me to be charged with that is a slap in the face ... I still have to face this fact a year later after my son is gone and I still have no answers. No nothing.”
The Hernando Police Department did not respond to requests for comments on the alleged shooting. The Desoto County District Attorney’s Office also did not return calls and emails from The Commercial Appeal. An employee at the Desoto County Clerks officer said there were no publicly available case files. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said the probe into the actions of the marshals is complete but the agency said documents could not be released while the Shelby County District Attorney’s review of the case was ongoing. The shooting victim in Mississippi could not be reached for comment.
Webber’s family is no closer to understanding why he was killed now than they were in the weeks after his death.
Desiree Stennett covers economic development and business at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at desiree.stennett@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2738 or on Twitter: @desi_stennett.