Sacramento PD says officers receiving death threats after fatal shooting of Stephon Clark

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Friday, March 23, 2018
Officers receive death threats after fatal Sacramento officer-involved shooting
Sacramento police tells ABC News that the two officers involved in the shooting death of 22-year-old Stephon Clark are now receiving death threats.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sacramento police told ABC News that the two officers involved in the shooting death of 22-year-old Stephon Clark are now receiving death threats.

Protests erupted Thursday night at the Golden One Center in downtown Sacramento where the Kings and Atlanta Hawks were playing following the release of police bodycam footage.

RELATED: Protests erupt in Sacramento after deadly officer-involved shooting

Police say the incident started when neighbors called 911, reporting a man breaking car windows then hiding in a backyard. They went door to door looking for the suspect. In the air, a police helicopter zoned in on someone running south, then hopping a fence.

Officials say Clark was looking into a car parked at his grandmother's house. Police say they fired 20 rounds because they believed he had a firearm, which turned out to be an iPhone.

Police spokesperson Linda Matthews says while 20 shots were fired, police still do not know how many times Clark was hit by gunfire. She also says additional body cam video from responding officers will be released within the next 30 days.

She expects the investigation into Clark's death will take at least two months.

When asked if there's any doubt Clark was, in fact, the suspect they were looking in a vandalism case, Matthews couldn't answer definitively. She said, "That's still part of the investigation, but there's where our detectives come in, in contacting everyone along that street, all of the neighbors, to find out, you know, what his actions were prior to our officers' arrival."

The names of the officers involved have not yet been released.

Click here for the full report from ABC News.

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