SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento Police Department officials released new video weeks after a man experienced a medical emergency and died while he was being detained.
Police responded to a home on 51st Avenue back on June 27 where they located the suspect who seemed dazed and confused.
The man insisted he was at his own home, but police assert it isn’t his property and he’s scaring people inside due to the time — 4 a.m.
Police try to understand why he is where he is and if he was involved in a nearby car accident.
The man eventually tells police he needs to sit down and reveals he was actually involved in the accident.
The man identifies himself as Joseph and police ask if he’s hurt and they should call the fire department for medical aid. Joseph says yes.
Police try to render aid, but he starts to have a medical emergency and is later pronounced dead. The officers did not use force and did not handcuff the man during the encounter.
It's not clear if this was a mental health issue, substance abuse, medical emergency or even a combination of the all above. But questions remain in these type of in-custody deaths.
The Sacramento Police Department Mental Health Unit trains officers for situations like this.
Officer Dan Bean with the unit says officers are more specifically trained to see things in these situations.
"They're able to identify mental health developmental disabilities. Things like that and realize that maybe there is something more going on here. Maybe it's not that they don't want to comply, but maybe they can't mentally or physically comply in that moment," said Bean.
Community leaders launched the first annual Stephon Clark Mental Health Expo Friday.
"I believe my mental health was affected after the death of my brother and I believe if I'm not showing people the difference between pain and mental illness, if I'm not showing people that what I went through was because of untreated trauma,” said Stevante Clark, community activist. “It was passion but it had no direction".
Stephon Clark was shot and killed by Sacramento Police in his grandmother's backyard. Police had been chasing Clark following reports of someone breaking into cars. Officers say they believed he was armed but found only a cellphone.
Going forward, the Clark family hopes this expo will help others who might be struggling or who still have questions about a tragedy.
