There will be no charges for Terrance Mercadal and Jared Robinet, the two Sacramento police officers who shot and killed an unarmed man in his own back yard.
The Sacramento Police Department also cleared the officers of any wrongdoing and is returning them to active duty.
“After a careful and thorough review into the facts surrounding the shooting, federal investigators and prosecutors determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a violation of the federal statute,” the US Attorney’s Office said in a statement. “Accordingly, the investigation into this incident has been closed.”
In the video above, The New York Times meticulously breaks down every moment of the fatal shooting. Clark was observed jumping over a neighbor’s fence into his own yard, then killed there after this implied trespass by the two officers, who guessed he was a vandal they were looking for and didn’t stop shooting until the body stopped moving.
Mercadal and Robinet failed to identify themselves as police and muted their bodycams after they killed Clark.
At 9:26 on a Sunday evening, Stephon Clark encountered two police officers. Twenty-three seconds later, they shot and killed him. We analyzed the extensive body camera and helicopter footage frame-by-frame and reviewed the autopsy report to explain what happened.
“Gun!’ is what cops yell into their bodycams so they’ll get away with it. But look on the bright side: without the bodycams, they’d be saving their breaths.