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The case just got serious

Source: Yuri_Arcurs / Getty

This is the type of story I hate to report and unfortunately it is just another horrific story of a black man killed unnecessarily by police.

via:LBS

Sacramento police shot and killed 22-year-old Stephon Clark after they mistook the cell phone in his hand for a weapon.

Stephon was in the backyard of the home he shared with his grandparents and some of his siblings at the time he was killed.

The police department said officers were responding to a report that someone was breaking car windows nearby.

The suspect was described as a 6-foot-1 man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and dark pants hiding in a backyard.

Deputies told police the suspect had used a “toolbar” to break another home’s window.

Deputies in a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department helicopter spotted Clark in a backyard, and told deputies he had shattered a window with a tool bar.

Deputies instructed officers on the ground to the man’s location.

Police approached Clark, who they initially believed was armed with a gun, though no firearm was recovered from the scene, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Police said Clark held an “object” that he “extended in front of him” as he approached two officers.

“The officers believed the suspect was pointing a firearm at them. Fearing for their safety, the officers fired their duty weapons striking the suspect multiple times,” the police department said in a release. Clark was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said Monday that the only item found near Clark’s body was a cell phone.