On March 18, 2018 in Sacramento, California Stephon Clark a 20 year old unarmed black man was shot in his own backyard. That Sunday night a resident in the neighborhood called 911 to report a man who had busted the windows from their car and said that the suspect was passing through people’s backyards and was wearing a black hoodie.

Law enforcement had a helicopter flying over the neighborhood when one of the sheriffs said they saw a man in a backyard pick up a toolbar and break the window of a home. When the man climbed the fence into another backyard the pilot let the police know his location. Police claimed that the man, Stephon, climbed a tall fence and scoped out a car before running into the backyard of his own home.

Following the incident it was shown that Clark had no weapon on him, just his cellphone. The police ran into the backyard with flashlights turned and took cover behind a corner when an officer yelled that Clark had a gun. They proceeded to shoot him 20 times. 20 bullets into an unarmed man. The officers that were present in the incident were wearing body cams. The footage was released by police, which went on to show that the police deliberately muted the video after shooting. The fact that they muted their body cams definitely raises some suspicion about the entire situation.

To think that they shot Clark 20 whole times is crazy. Clark had no weapon on him, the police did not bother to go check on him until a whole 6 minutes passed and when they did go over to him, and they handcuffed him rather attempting to save him. When has it ever been okay to shoot someone 20 times, no matter the situation? It was just plain overkill. Police officers need to be trained better than that. The police officers called out nothing to warn him and offered no help after they inhumanely shot him 20 times.

We have seen things like this happen far too often. Most of the time these police officers face no consequenses but instead go on paid leave. What can we do to change this? Clearly putting body cams on these officers has not been effective since these police officers can mute and stop these body cams as they please. There is absolutely no justification for the way that the police reacted. In no situation would shooting someone 20 times be deemed justified. The police in this situation showed absolutely no care for the life of Stephon. What kind of horrible training tells you that you need to wait for backup to help one man who you shot 20 times. Stephon Clark did not deserve to die that night.