Portland Approves $3.75M for Police Murder of Immanueal Clark: White Cop Shot Black Man in the Back w/AR-15 and Then Denied Medical Help. Cops Were Looking for a White Suspect, No Charges by White DA

The City of Portland will settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought against the Portland Police Bureau from a November 2022 fatal shooting.

The estate of Immanueal Jaquez Clark will receive the $3,750,000 settlement.

Clark was 30 years old when he was shot and killed by white Portland officer Christopher Sathoff.

The suit alleges police had no probable cause or reasonable suspicion to stop the car that Clark-Johnson was driving on Nov. 19, 2022, as part of an armed robbery call.

Grand jury transcripts revealed in September that police surrounded and approached Clark-Johnson’s car based on a very general description of the suspected getaway car in the robbery and before officers at the robbery scene had obtained surveillance footage of the car.

Clark-Johnson and others in the car also didn’t match the description provided by the robbery victim, according to attorney Juan Chavez and audio of the 911 call.

On his initial 911 call, the victim said the three to four suspects who took off in a car were “white, definitely white” men, according to the audio. The dispatch report that appears on police mobile computer screens also described the suspects as white men, dispatch records indicate.

“It’s clear as day from the first 911 call from the robbery victim that he described he was robbed by three to four white guys in a car,” Chavez said in an interview. “The fact that they staged this high-risk felony stop for a car that at best they had reasonable suspicion to pull over for a traffic violation, then of course, you’re going to have a terrible result like this. It was just unreasonable for officers to have approached this car in this way.”

Police had been alerted to an armed robbery in the parking lot of the Super Deluxe fast-food restaurant on Southeast Powell Boulevard and 50th Avenue at 12:27 a.m. shortly before the shooting. The caller reported that a person wearing a ski mask and hooded jacket had pounded on his car window with a handgun.

The lawsuit details a different set of events from what Portland Police Bureau (PPB) described at the time: Clark-Johnson was simply "standing near" the parked and non-running car. When officers attempted the "stop," the lawsuit continued, Clark-Johnson ran away. Clark-Johnson was unarmed and not threatening the officers, the suit said. 

Officer Christopher Sathoff then shot Clark-Johnson in the back with an AR-15 rifle, the suit said.  

"The police then left him to lay on the concrete parking lot, writhing in pain and bleeding out, for 26 minutes before providing any medical attention," the lawsuit said. 

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, alleges that not only did police have little reason to stop the sedan but they failed to come up with a plan on how to approach the car once they did.

“For almost half an hour, while Mr. Clark-Johnson lay severely wounded and begging for help, officers tried to get him to crawl toward him. Neighbors heard his cries and would have gotten him medical aid but were prevented by police,” the suit says.

The suit sought unspecified damages for the alleged violation of Clark-Johnson’s civil rights, his death and the cost of his medical care, burial services and memorial service. Chavez, representing Clark-Johnson’s family, is director of Oregon Justice Resource Center’s civil rights project. [MORE] and [MORE] and [MORE]