Month: March 2018

An independent forensic pathologist on Friday said Stephon Clark the unarmed black man who was killed by the police was fatally shot six times in the back.

Dr. Bennet Omalu, who conducted an autopsy days after Clark was killed told reporters that his examination showed that Clark was hit by eight bullets, and all but one entered while his back was facing police. He added that the eight bullet that hit Clark on his left thigh came while he was on the ground and had already been shot multiple times.

“That he was assailing the officers, meaning he was facing the officers, is inconsistent with the prevailing forensic evidence” as documented in the autopsy, he said.

Sacramento police fatally shot Stephon Clark, 22, in his grandmother’s backyard on March 18, during their search for a vandal in the neighborhood. No weapon was found on him other than a cellphone phone.

This independent autopsy finding has raised new questions about Clark shootings. However, police have released videos showing the incident but urged the public not to take law into their hands until the investigation is complete.

“It’s very simple. The narrative that’s been put forth is they had to open fire because he was charging toward them,” said civil rights litigator Ben Crump, who is representing Clark’s family. Yet the autopsy shows, Crump said, “all of the bullets were from behind.”

Stephon Clark was buried on Thursday at a funeral attended by hundreds of mourners including Rev. Al Sharpton.

A six-week campaign of protest in Gaza as resulted almost immediately into chaos and bloodshed with at least 12 Palestinians reported killed by Israeli soldiers in confrontations along the border fence.

The Israeli military reported Friday morning that Palestinian protesters were rioting in six different locations along the border, burning tires and throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the fence and at Israeli’s soldiers beyond it.

By late afternoon, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that 12 people had been killed by Israeli fire, while more than 1000 injured.

The area surrounding the Gaza Strip has long been declared a closed military zone by the Israeli military, and “responding with riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators.” said the military. Israeli forces fired live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas.

The march tagged the “Great March of Return,” or the “March of the million” by the organizers have in attendance about 20, 000 Palestinian including women and children who have erected tents in recent days about 700 yards from the border with Israel. The organizers also provided portable washrooms, free food, water and Wi-Fi

Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis, the chief spokesman of the Israeli military, described the protest organizers as “an organization in crisis” and accused its commanders of hiding behind women and children.

“This is not Scouts summer camp,” the said of the border encampment in a radio interview on Thursday. “It’s a battle zone.”

The self-driving Uber car that fatally hit a pedestrian in Arizona last week had fewer motion sensors and thus more “blind spots” than earlier driverless prototypes Uber was testing two years ago. The revelation came from five former Uber employees and four industry experts, who were speaking with reporters about the crash that hit and killed Tempe, Arizona, resident Elaine Herzberg while she was crossing a street with her bicycle.

The sources said that Uber had an early fleet of self-driving Ford Fusion cars that it retired in 2016 and replaced with new self-driving Volvo sport utility vehicles.
Each Fusion had a network of seven “lidar” sensors, which use laser light pulses to detect other cars, people, or obstacles in the Fusion’s path so it would dodge them. The new Volvos each had only one lidar sensor, and it was on the rooftop.

The lack of any side sensors caused the Volvo’s to have blind zones up to three meters distant all around them in which they could not detect a pedestrian, the sources said. Velodyne, maker of the lidar sensors, confirmed that the blind spots exist and said that the company will have to start putting more sensors on every car.

“If you’re going to avoid pedestrians, you’re going to need to have a side lidar to see those pedestrians and avoid them, especially at night,” Marta Hall, president and chief business development officer at Velodyne, told Reuters.

Velodyne documents stated that each lunar sensor can see in a 360-degree circle but only in a narrow horizontal band. It cannot see objects low to the ground and needs supplemental sensors and detectors to fill in this visual gap.