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Protest in memory of Stephon Clarke on March 28, 2018 in Sacramento (photo illustration). REUTERS / Gabriela Bhaskar

The two police officers who killed a black family man in 2018 in Sacramento after confusing his phone with a weapon will not be prosecuted. This is what announced Thursday, September 26, the federal authorities, for lack of evidence, according to US justice. Already in March, the California prosecutor announced, too, that the two police officers would not be prosecuted by the California justice, believing that the two men had committed no fault.

From our correspondent in San Francisco , Eric de Salves

" The investigators did not find enough evidence to prosecute the two police officers, so the investigations are over. This announcement from the US Department of Justice, the family of Stéphon Clarke has trouble digesting it. " We will continue to fight ," said his brother , "if the police could tell the difference between a gun and a phone, Stephon would still be alive. "

Because in 2018, these two agents, including a black man, had fired at Stephon Clarke, a 22-year-old Black father, on 20 occasions, killing him with seven bullets, three of them in the back, while he was in the garden. his grandmother. The images of the drama filmed by police cameras had triggered weeks of demonstrations, but it is also these same images that paradoxically avoid prosecution to the police.

Put your hands in the air

A few seconds before shooting the agents ask indeed the suspect to put his hands in the air. In one of her hands, the victim was holding a phone that the police took for a weapon. But in the eyes of the American justice, the mere fact that the police could think themselves in danger, authorizes it to open fire legally.

This week, the Sacramento police also issued a statement repeating that no fault had been committed, and that the two agents, can resume their service normally in the streets of Sacramento. The death of Stephon Clark in his garden in Sacramento in March 2018 sparked several weeks of protests in the Californian capital.

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