South Carolina officer fatally shoots unarmed white teen during pot bust

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/06/us/seneca-teen-dead-police-shooting/

By Jareen Imam, CNN
Updated 11:56 AM ET, Fri August 7, 2015

You think you've heard this story before. A young, unarmed man is gunned down by police, black activists are outraged -- the only difference with this scenario is that the young man is not black, he's white.

Nineteen-year-old Zachary Hammond was on a date July 26 when he was fatally shot twice by a police officer while at the back parking lot of a Hardee's fast food restaurant in Seneca, a city 40 miles from Greenville, near the North Carolina border, according to Eric Bland, the attorney representing the teen's family.

The Seneca Police Department said the officer was conducting a drug investigation and shot Hammond in self-defense.

"He was a uniformed officer, he was in a marked vehicle, was out of his vehicle on foot approaching the suspect vehicle -- weapon drawn given it was a narcotics type violation," Seneca Police Chief John Covington said to CNN affiliate WHNS.

A small amount of marijuana was found in the front passenger's compartment in Hammond's car.

"He was a 19-year-old, 121-pound kid killed basically for a joint," Bland said.

Tori Morton, who was on the date with Hammond, was arrested on charges of simple possession of marijuana. It was an amount, Bland said, that did not warrant such excessive police force.

"This is about the use of overreaching deadly force in situations where it is not required," Bland said.

Covington said the officer was attempting to arrest Hammond when the teen accelerated the car and drove toward the officer, prompting the officer to shoot in self-defense.

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Bland said Hammond's wounds indicate the vehicle was not moving, and the teen was shot on the rear of his shoulder and on the side of his chest. The Hammond family commissioned an independent autopsy, which found the teen's gunshot wounds indicated he was shot from behind and at close range.

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Hammond's death has not generated the same national outcry as the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others. Black Lives Matter, an activist community that is working to end what it says is the systematic targeting of black people by police, has been sharing Hammond's story on social media as another example of police brutality while also asking why Hammond's death has not prompted outrage by other groups.
[I didn't see any such comments from my African-American Facebook friends, some of whom post a lot about what they consider racism against African-Americans. I get so much in my newsfeed, if there were some I might not have seen them, if there were any. But in similar cases where the person shot was African-American, I see plenty of posts.]

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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/05/zachary-hammond-autopsy-police-killing-south-carolina

Jamiles Lartey in New York
Wednesday 5 August 2015

An independent autopsy acquired by the Guardian concludes that 19-year-old Zachary Hammond, who was shot and killed by a police officer in Seneca, South Carolina, was shot from the side – challenging the officer’s account of the killing.

Attorney Eric Bland, who represents the Hammond family, said the independent autopsy raises questions about the police account, which said that Hammond was driving his vehicle at the officer who fired on him.

“When he [the officer] shot, it was physically impossible for the car to hit him because he’s next to him [Hammond],” Bland told the Guardian. “So unless a hurricane comes and blows the car over, it’s physically impossible for him to be hit by a car at that point.”
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“It is not reasonable,” the report reads, that Hammond “would have suffered these injuries in these anatomic locations [the back of his shoulder and the side of his chest] had [he] been shot from either the rear or the front of the vehicle”.

The shooting occurred on 26 July during an an attempted drug sting by the Seneca police department in the parking lot of a Hardee’s restaurant. An officer approached a car driven by Hammond when, police say, Hammond tried to flee.

Seneca police chief John Covington said the officer, who has not yet been named “felt threatened by [Hammond], who was driving his car toward the officer attempting to make the stop”. No weapon was recovered in the vehicle and Hammond had no prior record.

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The initial autopsy performed by Oconee County coroner Karl Addis said Hammond had been struck twice, in the shoulder and the chest, a finding in line with what Seneca police authorities have said. Bland called that characterization by police – which did not specify the back of the shoulder and the side of the chest – “incredibly misleading”.

“It gives the impression that he shot him from the front, which is consistent with the officer’s account that the car was coming at him,” Bland said.

Covington said last week that Hammond’s car came at an angle, so the shots were fired into the open driver’s side window.

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