Christine Haveford
It is a senseless tragedy that should have never happened.
22-year-old Stephon Alonzo ‘Zoe’ Clark was a devoted father-of-two.
Cops searching for a suspect who was seen breaking car windows in Sacramento, mistook Clark for the culprit.
They shot and killed him in his own backyard.
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Police say they killed the young father because he was walking towards them holding an object.
They believed it was a gun and ‘feared for their safety’.
But investigators only found a cell phone near his body after he was brutally gunned down.
Dozens of people took to the streets on Monday night to protest Clark’s shooting.
Clark’s aunt, Shernita Crosby, took part in the march organized by Black Lives Matter activists and told CBS13 she was ‘mad as hell.’
According to a press release from the Sacramento Police Department addressing the fatal shooting, officers were called to the home at 9.18pm on Sunday.
They received reports of a man breaking into vehicles.
The caller, who ask for police back up, said the male subject had broken car windows and was now hiding in a backyard.
The suspect was described as a thin 6-foot-1 man wearing a black hoodie and dark pants.
The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department’s helicopter (STAR) was also on scene searching for the suspect.
At about 9.25pm, the helicopter crew communicated that they spotted the suspect, later identified as Clark, in a backyard and directed police officers to his location.
STAR then advised police that Clark had just picked up a ‘toolbar’ and broke a window to a residence.
The chopper crew continued to update the officers and guided them to the suspect in the backyard.
According to the news release, officers entered the front yard and observed Clark along the side of the residence.
The cops ordered him to stop and show his hands.
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‘The suspect immediately fled from the officers and ran towards the back of the home,’ the statement read.
Officers pursued Clark and tracked him to the backyard of his family’s home.
There, police say the 22-year-old ‘turned and advanced towards the officers while holding an object which was extended in front of him.’
‘Fearing for their safety, the officers fired their duty weapons striking the suspect multiple times,’ police stated.
Five minutes later, backup arrived and Clark was placed in handcuffs before officers began life-saving efforts.
Sadly, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
His grandmother Sequita Thompson was at home that night and heard the gunshots.
“I opened that curtain and [saw] he was dead,” she said. “I started screaming,” she told the Sacramento Bee.
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