DeMarcus Cousins Offers To Pay For Stephon Clark’s Funeral In Sacramento Police Shooting

NBA star DeMarcus Cousins is offering to pay for the funeral of Stephon Clark, the unarmed black man gunned down by Sacramento police just steps from his grandmother’s home.

Cousins, who now plays for the New Orleans Pelicans, spent the first six seasons of his NBA career in Sacramento with the Kings. His offer comes as demonstrators have taken to the streets across the city in protest, including briefly shutting down a Kings home game.

“He has reached out to the family and offered to cover expenses,” a source close to Cousins told ESPN.

Cousins has made similar offers before at times of tragedy in the city. Back in 2015, he paid for the funeral of a local football player, Jaulon “JJ” Clavo. He has also hosted free basketball camps and funded the purchase of a new scoreboard for Sacramento High School’s basketball gym.

In the Clark shooting, police opened fire after claiming they mistook a cellphone he was carrying for a revolver. Clark was confronted after police were summoned to the area by reports of a man breaking windows.

On the night of the Kings vs. Atlanta Hawks game, protesters holding signs with messages such as “Shut it down” stood, arm-in-arm, outside the Smoothie King Center blocking the flow of traffic.

After the game, Kings owner Vivek Ranadive joined players on the court and addressed fans, expressing their sympathies and intimating that the team has a role to play in the well-being of the community.

CNN has reported investigators never found a gun on the scene where Clark was killed and that the incident was recorded by the body cameras of at least two of the officers at the scene.

In footage that has since been released, the video shows officers confronting Clark in a brief encounter where officers screamed, “show me your hands” before at least one of them yelled “gun, gun, gun.”

In all, officers fired at least 20 shots, hitting Clark multiple times.

While police claim they have footage of Clark damaging vehicles in the area, Stevante Clark told HLN his brother “wasn’t a thief.”

“He was arrested before, but he’s been different lately, he really changed his life,” he added. “He was a people person who everybody wanted to be around. We came from underprivileged, broken homes, but he didn’t care about nothing else but his kids.”

The two officers involved in the shooting have been placed on paid administrative leave and a use of force investigation is now underway.