LISTEN: ‘Deconstructed’ Podcast Interview With Stephon Clark’s Fiancée

By Kenrya Rankin Apr 06, 2018

On March 18, two Sacramento Police Department officers fired eight shots into the body of Stephon Clark, killing the 22-year-old Black man who was armed with only a cell phone. While the officers claimed that Clark was advancing on them with a gun, an independent autopsy shows that most of the bullets were fired into the back of his body. Today (April 6), The Intercept columnist Mehdi Hasan talked to Stephon’s fiancée Salena Manni on his new podcast, "Deconstructed."


“We were just always together as a family, and that’s what he always wanted,” Manni tells Hasan. “We made sure our love was strong for our kids, our bond was strong for our kids, and we were just happy as a whole. We were inseparable.”


In the interview, Manni pushes back against the Trump administration’s dismissal of Clark’s death as a “local matter” and makes it clear that she believes the police department lied about the details of his death. She also had a message for law enforcement:


"When they shoot someone, it affects more than the person that they kill. Here, me, my children, my family and Stephon’s family, we’re all suffering [from] the shooting of an unarmed man. It’s caused unrest within our family, unrest within the community, and we seek justice for my love. That’s all we want.”


Listen to the full episode below.