PROTESTERS in California closed part of a motorway as they marched over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in Sacramento.

Hundreds of people rallied after the death of Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old who was shot on Sunday in the back garden of his grandparents’ home.

Police said they feared he had a handgun when they confronted him after reports that he had been breaking windows in the south Sacramento neighbourhood.

But police found only a mobile phone.

Community leader Rev Les Simmons said “we are at a place of deep pain” because of recent violence directed at black people in Sacramento and elsewhere.

He said the city’s first black police chief, Daniel Hahn, is doing what he can but protested over the actions of Hahn’s officers.

Clinton Primm said he was friends with Clark, who was nicknamed Zoe, for about six years and fears others are also at risk of being shot by police.

“He was a great dad,” he recalled of Clark, the father of sons aged one and three. “He loved both of them to death.”

Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg said he was horrified by the death but would not second-guess the “split-second decisions” of the officers.

He praised Hahn for quickly releasing videos of the shooting, but independent experts say many questions remain unanswered.