A protester at a vigil Saturday night for Stephon Clark was hit by a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department vehicle on Florin Road, the latest tense moment between law enforcement and activists following the March 18 police shooting death of the unarmed black man.
Witnesses and the struck protester said the sheriff’s vehicle left the scene.
The collision, captured on video by Guy Danilowitz of the National Lawyers Guild, occurred as protesters marched down Florin Road in south Sacramento.
The activist struck was Wanda Cleveland, a regular at Sacramento City Council meetings. She lay immobile on her side in the street until a fire department crew arrived to pick her up.
Cleveland was released from Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center after midnight, with bruises on her arm and the back of her head.
“He never even stopped. It was a hit and run. If I did that I’d be charged,” Cleveland said at the hospital. “It’s disregard for human life.”
In a press release early Sunday morning, sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Shaun Hampton confirmed the accident had occurred. The release said two sheriff’s department vehicles were surrounded at about 8:40 p.m. by protesters who were yelling and kicking the vehicles.
“Vandals in the crowd” caused “scratches, dents, and a shattered rear window” to a sheriff’s vehicle, the release said. The release did not address why the vehicle that struck Cleveland did not stop, and Hampton did not immediately respond to a request for further details.
Dominique Poydras, who was attending the vigil, said a group of protesters had surrounded a Sheriff’s Department vehicle and a few were throwing eggs at it.
Based on footage captured by Channel 10, a sheriff’s vehicle pulled up, lights flashing, as protesters marched in the street. About three dozen people then surrounded the vehicle and kept chanting.
The sheriff’s deputy four times sounded his siren and said, “Back away from my vehicle.” He slowly pulled forward and left the scene. A second sheriff’s vehicle followed and struck Cleveland, sending her to the curb, the Channel 10 video shows.
Cleveland said that when the first vehicle said to clear out, she started to walk toward the curb because her arthritis was making her knees weak. The second vehicle driver made no request, she said, and abruptly accelerated and hit her in the knee, sending her into the air.
“I heard wheels spin. And then I saw her body flung to the curb,” Tifanei Ressl-Moyer, another legal observer who witnessed the incident, said. “The vehicle sped off and some protesters went after them.”
The sheriff’s department release said the patrol vehicle was traveling at “slow speeds” when the collision occurred.