“In the late evening of March 18, 2018, Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed in Meadowview, Sacramento, California by Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet, two officers of the Sacramento Police Department in the backyard of his grandmother's house while he had a phone in his hand. The encounter was filmed by police video cameras and by a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department helicopter which was involved in observing Clark on the ground and in directing ground officers to the point at which the shooting took place. The officers stated that they shot Clark, firing 20 rounds, believing that he had pointed a gun at them. Police found only a cell phone on him. While the Sacramento County Coroner's autopsy report concluded that Clark was shot seven times, including three shots to the right side of the back, the pathologist hired by the Clark family stated that Clark was shot eight times, including six times in the back." This is not an exercise about whether Clark smashed windows or what he was doing that night or the particular ins and outs of this one case, rather it is an exercise in using our sociological imagination to understand how Clark murder reveals the deeper structural phenomenon of police killings of innocent people, especially black men. One of the officers who killed him is black and this also reveals the limits of racial identity. 1) Use your sociological imagination to identify the social issues involved in this scenario. Sociologically, what is going on? How does this connect to broader issues and phenomenon in society?
“In the late evening of March 18, 2018, Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed in Meadowview, Sacramento, California by Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet, two officers of the Sacramento Police Department in the backyard of his grandmother's house while he had a phone in his hand. The encounter was filmed by police video cameras and by a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department helicopter which was involved in observing Clark on the ground and in directing ground officers to the point at which the shooting took place. The officers stated that they shot Clark, firing 20 rounds, believing that he had pointed a gun at them. Police found only a cell phone on him. While the Sacramento County Coroner's autopsy report concluded that Clark was shot seven times, including three shots to the right side of the back, the pathologist hired by the Clark family stated that Clark was shot eight times, including six times in the back."
This is not an exercise about whether Clark smashed windows or what he was doing that night or the particular ins and outs of this one case, rather it is an exercise in using our sociological imagination to understand how Clark murder reveals the deeper structural phenomenon of police killings of innocent people, especially black men. One of the officers who killed him is black and this also reveals the limits of racial identity.
1) Use your sociological imagination to identify the social issues involved in this scenario. Sociologically, what is going on? How does this connect to broader issues and phenomenon in society?
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