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Video shows NBA’s Brandon Clarke stopped by police 6 weeks before his death

▶ Watch Video: Video shows NBA’s Brandon Clarke stopped by police 6 weeks before death

Six weeks before NBA player Brandon Clarke of the Memphis Grizzlies died mysteriously in Los Angeles this spring at the age of 29, he was pulled over in Arkansas for fleeing from the police, who said he was driving well over 100 miles per hour in his new Corvette. 

CBS News was first to publish the dramatic, never-before-seen body camera footage. 

Once Clarke did eventually pull over, he was handcuffed and put in the back of the Cross County sheriff deputy’s patrol vehicle.

Officers searched Clarke’s car and found several large bags of clear capsules containing a green powdery substance, according to a police report. The bags were labeled “100% Pure Mitragyna Speciosa,” with names such as “The Juice,” “Gold Rhino,” “Pure Green” and “Euflooria.” 

In the back of the police vehicle, Clarke told officers: “It’s just kratom.”

Kratom is an herbal extract that comes from the leaves of an evergreen tree called Mitragyna speciosa that grows in Southeast Asia, according to the Mayo Clinic.  

Kratom has been used for centuries and has been known to help manage pain. But in its new manufactured form, skeptics call kratom “gas station heroin” because it can be highly addictive.  

Clarke spent much of the last three years injured. He tore his Achilles tendon in 2023 and underwent two procedures on his right knee in 2025. This year, he missed games with a strained right calf and the team had said he was out for the season. 

The Drug Enforcement Administration says kratom produces stimulant effects in low doses and sedative effects in high doses, and can lead to psychotic symptoms, and psychological and physiological dependence. 

The Food and Drug Administration has warned that using kratom can cause serious adverse events like liver toxicity and seizures. In rare cases, the FDA says deaths have been associated with kratom use when combined with other drugs. 

Kratom is primarily regulated at the state level. In many states, it is legal to buy, but in Arkansas, kratom is illegal and is classified as a Schedule I drug. At the time of Clarke’s arrest, kratom was legal in neighboring Tennessee, where he played. 

In addition to kratom, police said they found a THC vape pen containing a brown liquid that tested positive for marijuana in Clarke’s car. 

Clarke was charged with two felonies: trafficking a controlled substance and fleeing in a vehicle. He was also charged with three misdemeanors. 

Six weeks after that arrest, Clarke died in Los Angeles on May 11. 

Did kratom play a role in Clarke’s death? The County of Los Angeles Medical Examiner is investigating. Officially, the status of the case is “deferred.” In an email, the medical examiner’s office said: “When a case is deferred, it means a deputy medical examiner completed an examination but requested additional testing and/or studies in order to make a determination. Due to the ongoing death investigation, the County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner cannot disclose what testing and/or studies were requested. Deferred cases can take a few months before a cause of death is determined.”

Once enemies in war, Idaho Falls marks 45 years of friendship with Japanese Sister City

Click here for updates on this story    IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (eastidahonews.com) -- More than 80 years after World War II turned the United States and Japan into bitter enemies, teenagers from a small Japanese village are spending the next 10 days in Idaho Falls — a living reminder of how friendship can outlast history.Youth delegates from Tokai-Mura, Japan, arrived in Idaho Falls on Thursday for a Sister Cities exchange. During the trip, the delegation — which consists of 15 students between 12 and 18, and three adult chaperones — will be introduced to the people, places and experiences that make eastern Idaho unique.On Friday, the students met with Mayor Lisa Burtenshaw and visited the Idaho Falls Police Department Complex. They also saw the Sister Cities display at the Idaho Falls Public Library and visited the Idaho Falls Zoo, Funland and indoor pickleball courts at Tautphaus Park.Host families are providing a living space for the students as they visit a wide range of local attractions and activities. Their itinerary includes visits to Island Park and Yellowstone National Park, the Idaho National Lab, Museum of Idaho, and local schools, including College of Eastern Idaho. They will also attend the War Bonnet Round Up rodeo and spend a day at Lagoon.The city has had an ongoing relationship with the eastern Japanese village since 1981.The Sister Cities program was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 to promote peace, cultural understanding, educational exchanges, and economic cooperation. The five-star general — who was given unprecedented command of all allied forces during World War II — believed that personal connections between ordinary citizens could help prevent future conflicts.On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into World War II and resulted in many Americans feeling racial animosity towards those of Japanese descent.Months later, on Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the U.S. military to gather up 120,000 people of Japanese descent, even those who were American citizens, and place them in concentration camps scattered throughout the U.S.More than 10,000 Japanese Americans were housed at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Jerome County between 1942 and 1945. It’s now recognized as a national historic site.On April 18, 1942, Lt. Col. James Doolittle of the United States Air Force led a B-25 air raid over Tokyo. America’s initial retaliation against the Japanese killed 50 people and caused only minor damage, but it did much to boost morale for U.S. forces.The Japanese later launched thousands of balloons armed with incendiary bombs designed to terrorize America in the waning days of World War II. The plot ultimately failed. Of the 9,000 balloons that were launched, only about 1,000 made it to North America, one of which landed in Rigby.A Rigby Star article, written the day before the U.S. bombed Japan, referred to the East Asian country as a “bastard nation” that “must be reduced to zero and closely watched for many years.”The following month, in May of 1942, then-Idaho Gov. Chase Clark, who was from Idaho Falls, made a disparaging remark about the Japanese while speaking at a Lion’s Club meeting in Grangeville.“Japs live like rats, breed like rats and act like rats. We don’t want them permanently located in our state,” Clark is reported to have said.Clark said “the Jap problem” could best be solved by returning all people of Japanese descent to Japan and “then sink the island.”Clark, who supported the relocation of Japanese people to the Minidoka camp, lost the election later that year but was later appointed as a federal district judge and presided over the Nisei Trials in Idaho. This was a case involving 37 Japanese-American men who were incarcerated at the Minidoka War Relocation Center and later defied draft orders. President Harry Truman pardoned them in 1947.Clark reportedly apologized for his disparaging statement years later. His grandson, Chase Church, believes it was the reason he was not re-elected for a second term.There was a fairly large population of Japanese Americans in Idaho Falls as WWII was raging, and although the hostilities toward them weren’t as bad as other places, they still had curfews and other travel restrictions imposed on them.The war came to an end in 1945 after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, but American hostility towards the Japanese remained. It would be more than three decades before FDR’s executive order was officially rescinded. Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act in 1988, calling the order a “grave injustice” to Japanese Americans. Around $1.6 billion in reparations were given to “formerly interned Japanese Americans or their heirs,” one article reports.“We must recognize that the internment of Japanese Americans was … a mistake,” President Ronald Reagan said in a 1988 speech. “Throughout the war, Japanese Americans in the tens of thousands remained utterly loyal to the United States.”Today, a Day of Remembrance revolving around FDR’s executive order is held every year. The Japanese American Citizens League works to “secure and maintain the civil rights of Japanese Americans and all others who are victimized by injustice and bigotry.”Decades after Eisenhower created the Sister Cities program, Idaho Falls had developed a collaborative relationship with Tokai Mura through what was then the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. Scientists with the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute in Tokai and the desert site in Idaho began exchanging visits and working together on nuclear safety research around 1976, according to Japanese historical records.“During this time, the idea of ​​a sister city relationship arose, mainly among Japanese Americans living in Idaho, and the idea was relayed to the village through JAERI staff. In October 1978, a letter of intent to establish a sister city relationship arrived from the City of Falls, Idaho, to the village mayor,” the document says.The two cities officially entered into a partnership on July 3, 1981. A commemorative ceremony was held in Idaho Falls to not only acknowledge the sister city status, but also pledge “eternal development and lasting friendship between the two cities.”The Idaho Falls Japanese Friendship Garden at 600 West Broadway was created in 2011 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the sister-city relationship. A deadly earthquake and tsunami occurred in Japan that same year, and the Friendship Garden also became a tribute to the victims of that tragedy. It was dedicated in 2012 and a student delegation from Tokai-Mura attended.Forty-five years after its partnership began, the Sister Cities program facilitates annual exchanges between the two communities. Japanese youth visit Idaho Falls while Idaho Falls adults travel to Japan.Laura Combs, president of the Idaho Falls Sister Cities Youth program, says these yearly exchanges help build relationships and cultural understanding across generations.“It’s amazing to see our home community through an exchange student’s eyes. Something we find routine, they find surprising,” Combs says in a news release. “Our homes, climate, geography and languages are different, but hospitality is a universal language, and this program creates lifelong friendships and understanding.”Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
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