Two days before Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced she wouldn’t file criminal charges against the police officers who fatally shot Stephon Clark, Chief Daniel Hahn sat at a table with the Rev. Mary Westfall, a pastor with the Presbytery of Sacramento.

Hahn and his officers had met with Westfall, other clergy and black community leaders for several months, bringing in speakers on transformational policing and discussing how both sides could help deescalate tense situations after Schubert’s inevitable announcement. The city wanted avoid another national black eye like the one it wore after Clark’s death, when protesters shut down Golden 1 Center and took over city council meetings; activists wanted a guarantee that they could peacefully express themselves without facing force.

“Many faith leaders had been working with law enforcement to say ‘when this day comes, we want to do it differently,’” Westphal said. “We worked hard with the communities who are most affected by this egregious injustice to really tell them, ‘trust for now. We are assured we won’t be met with violence. Demonstrate, grieve, express your anger and outrage.”

In her last meeting with Hahn before the DA’s decision, Westfall gave a gentle reminder of what was to come.

“I looked him in the face and said, ‘Chief Hahn, in a few days, we’re going to be facing each other in different circumstances. Remember what we’ve done here. Remember who these people are that your law enforcement (agents) will be looking at,’” Westfall recalled Thursday.

What followed, Westfall said, was “a total breach of faith.”

“Rev. Ben?”

Pastor Damian Chandler of Capitol City Seventh-Day Adventist Church requests the floor. He says a police stop with his two sons in the car got him thinking. He says he’s not here solely for his ancestors.

“The reason that I’m standing here today is not just because of Stephon Clark, but also for those who are alive,” he says. “I want to go to graduations. I want to go to my son’s wedding. I want to bless my grandchildren. And if I don’t speak out and stand for those who are living, at some point, Rev. Ben, someone’s going to call one of my son’s names.”

“Over the past few months I have participated in clergy and community activities to prepare for the Stephon Clark decision. In all of those discussions we emphasized de-escalation and judicious use of police power. Yet when demonstrations were held in an elite community, notice the difference,” said Imam Haazim Rashed of Masjid As Sabur mosque in South Sacramento.

“By holding it where people of power live, we saw no deescalation, no judicious use of police power, no mitigation, no negotiation, we saw oppression,” he said.

He was among about 150 people gathered at the Capitol to advocate for A.B. 392. Many of them chanted “No justice, no peace, no racist police,” among other things.

Sacramento police arrested 84 people after demonstrators marched through the city's affluent East Sacramento neighborhood Monday, protesting the district attorney's decision not to bring criminal charges against the officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark last March.

Those arrested include Pastor Les Simmons of Sacramento Area Congregations Together, a prominent figure in actions around the Clark cause over the past year, two journalists, and students who were part of a group that shut down the Arden Fair Mall on Sunday.

The actions by police were a stark contrast to when demonstrations erupted after Clark's death last year when only a handful of arrests were made despite protestors shutting down Interstate 5 and blocking fans from entering a Sacramento Kings basketball game.

While those previous demonstrations targeted downtown Sacramento, this was the first to take place in a wealthier, predominantly white part of the city.

“We saw Stephon Clark die twice. March 18, 2018, and we saw him die March 2, 2019, today, in how he was referred to, and then no accountability of these officers... This is no justice for the Clark family and no justice for the side of what we call Beloved Community, right? Dr. King lifted up the idea of Beloved Community, which stands on justice, which stands on love, which stands on belonging, and this is not that. I think we have an opportunity in Sacramento to lead not only the state but the nation in redefining what justice looks like for these incidents.” Pastor Les Simmons

"We don't believe the DA's findings represents what justice is for this community, for this city, for this state, and for this nation," said Pastor Lee Simmons.

The news conference was co-organized by Sacramento Area Congregations Together (ACT).

"Police officers who police the black community should be trained in de-escalation and mental health tactics, and if they don't have this type of training, then maybe those police officers shouldn't be policing our communities," said Allegra Taylor with Sacramento ACT.

Also represented was the Muslim faith through civil rights attorney Saad Sweilem, with the Sacramento Valley chapter of CAIR (Council on American–Islamic Relations).

"It's taken only two days after Black History Month for us to be reminded that the journey of our black brothers and sisters to obtain justice and equality before the law is still as much a struggle today as it has ever been before," Sweilem said. "For as long as we have laws that enforce racist policing, inform biased trainings and excuse the senseless murders of unarmed black men like Stephon Clark, there is no justice and no equality."

Allegra Taylor, with Sacramento ACT, began her response with an African proverb: “The child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”

She called for the city to implement a higher standard for use of deadly force that mirrors AB 392.

As a coalition of faith communities, Sacramento ACT holds that every single person’s life is valuable to God and to the human family. As long as black lives do not matter to many of those in power, we cannot say all lives matter.