Pirate's Cove

Of course, this is all being spun as racist, such as at the Washington Post

Police shot at a man 20 times in his own yard, thinking he had a gun. It was an iPhone.

Police say they saw an object in Stephan Clark’s hand before firing 20 bullets that killed him in his back yard Sunday night in Sacramento, a disturbing moment that was made public through body camera footage released Wednesday night.

The two officers were responding to a 911 call about a man breaking vehicle windows when they encountered, then killed, Clark, an unarmed black man.

Video released by the Sacramento Police Department depicts a frantic foot pursuit through darkened streets pierced by white slivers of police flashlight.

That “white slivers” thing is cute, eh?

The officers spot Clark approaching a house and shout: “Show me your hands! Stop! Stop!”

Clark is seen running, and the two officers round the corner of the house and find him under a covered patio.

An infrared camera on an overhead helicopter briefly loses sight of Clark at this moment.

“Show me your hands! Gun!” an officer shouts and ducks behind the wall in a fraction of a second.

The helicopter footage shows one of the officers appearing to grab his partner to pull him to cover.

Clark steps toward the officers. Behind the wall, one of the officers issues another command. “Show me your hands!” And then: “Gun, gun, gun!”

Both officers open fire. Sparks from the bullets light up the helicopter’s infrared camera in sharp white pops.

Both officers reportedly fired 10 rounds each. It’s unknown how many struck Clark.

The “article” spends a lot of time quoting his grandmother, Sequita Thompson, who was present at the time (Clark was staying with her), and we get things like

Thompson disputes the police department’s version of events. Her grandson was short, she said in a video produced by the Bee. She believes another suspect was smashing windows, and that Clark was in the back yard at the wrong time.

It’s all about building a raaaaacist narrative, which is interesting, since this happened in yet another Democratic run city. In fact, remember, Sacramento is the Capital of Democratic controlled California. The WP finally gets around to a bit of detail, long after most people who have moved on to another story while muttering about racist police killing unarmed black men

The narrative of the Sunday night shooting released by authorities tells a short, grim story.

The helicopter observed a suspect picking up a “toolbar” and breaking a window to a house after 9 p.m. Sunday night.

The Bee reported it was the sliding glass door belonging to a neighbor.

Authorities said the suspect then ran and looked into a car.

Police in the helicopter guided officers on the ground to the front yard of Thompson’s house as Clark was coming from the back.

They met in the middle, and soon Clark was dead.

The gun officers thought Clark had in his hand was actually a white iPhone.

An analysis by The Washington Post found that 987 people were killed by police last year — 68 of them unarmed. Of those unarmed victims, 30 were white, 20 were black and 13 were Hispanic, showing an overrepresentation of African Americans among the total population. Five of the remaining fatalities were unknown or other.

Whoa! That’s quite a jump, eh? In fact, Clarke’s brother says his name will be remembered

“You’re going to know his name forever,” he added before reciting the names of several black men who were killed by police: “You’re going to remember it like how you know Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice. You’re going to know him. You’re going to remember this.”

Trayvon wasn’t killed by a police officer. He’d be alive if he didn’t jump a guy. Mike Brown would be alive if he didn’t attack a police officer. Regardless, the majority of the story is all about race baiting. The Sac Bee article has a lot more detail as to what happened, with the long chase along with the observation by the police helicopter, as does this HuffPost story. The police were there because they had received multiple calls that a person was breaking car windows. The helicopter started following the movements of Clark, which then witnessed him break a glass door, then jump a fence. Clark ran when confronted by the police. And it continued on.

All Clark had to do was not run. And not raise an object towards the police in night-time conditions. It’s not racism: it’s common sense.