This past weekend, Sacramento police officers shot 20 rounds at Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man. Clark was in his grandmother's backyard, and police were responding to a call that stated a thief was in the area.
Body cam footage was released later in the week, and it can be easily discerned that the cops acted erroneously. After unloading a multitude of shots into Clark, the cops moved up on his body. They claimed that he was reaching for a weapon, but only a cell phone was found at the scene. Clark was pronounced dead on the spot.
On Thursday night, protesters gathered around the Sacremento Kings' Golden 1 Center. The Kings played the Atlanta Hawks, but almost no one was in attendance. The protestors blocked fans from entering the game, and the NBA and the Kings locked all doors, barring anyone from entering. At one point, the protestors locked arms and chanted, "Join us or go home!" There were no arrests made, and protestors peacefully disbanded as the night carried on.
After the game, Sacramento Kings owner and chairman Vivek Ranadivé addressed the protestors. "On Sunday we had a horrific, horrific tragedy in our community," started Ranadivé. He continued on to give a riveting speech. "We at the Kings recognize people's ability to protest peacefully and we respect that," he stated.
"We here at the Kings recognize that we have a big platform. It's a privilege, but it's also a responsibility. It's a responsibility that we take very seriously. And we stand here before you, old, young, black, white, brown, and we are all united in our commitment.We recognize that it's not just business as usual, and we are going to work really hard to bring everybody together to make the world a better place, starting with our own community, and we're going to work really hard to prevent this kind of a tragedy from happening again."
Watch above.
