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Finding a middle ground: Mayor Steinberg talks Sacramento post Stephon Clark shooting

Mayor Darrell Steinberg is trying to mediate it all and doing what he feels is best to keep the lid from blowing off. ABC10's Walt Gray recently met for coffee with the Mayor to talk about how the city moves forward.

In Sacramento, There are two very different sides in the Stephon Clark case.

So far, finding a middle ground remains elusive.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg is trying to mediate it all and doing what he feels is best to keep the lid from blowing off. ABC10's Walt Gray recently met for coffee with the Mayor to talk about how the city moves forward.

Walt: Some are saying that they feel like you threw the Police Department under the bus.

Mayor Steinberg: I don't think that's fair. I can take any criticism, but really, I have said many, many times how deeply appreciative I am of our Police Department. You can talk to someone in the African-American community who has experienced profiling and an hour later speak to a person who's been in law enforcement for a long time and hear two very different stories. But there are common elements and the common element is fear.

Walt: What was going through your mind when he jumped up in your space?

Mayor: First of all, that moment is the moment I've gotten the most feedback on of anything in the last month. I had no adrenaline.

Walt: We're you scared?

Mayor: No...I actually got calmer. My only thinking was, 'I needed to lean in and try talk to him.' And I did. I asked him if he wanted the microphone. And I tried to remember in that moment that while that was not appropriate, and can't happen again, that this was his brother of Stephon Clark and that he was in the worst kind of pain imaginable.

Walt: What do people ask you the most on the street?

Mayor: What's really funny, I know that there's there's sort of the stereotype of local government and being the mayor is that people talk to you about potholes and garbage, but I don't get a lot of that. Maybe it's because they have [city] council members get, which I used to be, but they talk to me about the same issues you [Walt Gray] are talking to me about, about the cost of housing, about homelessness, that is a frequent topic.

In part two of Walt's interview, he asks the Mayor about those topics he just mentioned, homelessness, housing, and other viewer submitted questions. Continue the conversation with Walt on Facebook.

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