Zachary Hammond's Killing Was Self Defense? Video Shows Cop's Life Was Not In Danger

No charges for cop who killed Zachary Hammond

It's sad but unfortunately not surprising hearing today's announcement that no charges will be filed against Seneca (South Carolina) Police Department Lieutenant Mark Tiller in the shooting death of teenager Zachary Hammond back on the night of July 25th.

Even though Hammond (pictured left) was unarmed at the time that he was targeted for a simple weed "buy and bust" operation as he sat in his car in the parking lot of a Hardees fast food joint, Seneca City Administrator Greg Dietterick said that an investigation "shows that Lt. Tiller was acting in self defense."

Tiller claimed he feared for his life because he thought Hammond was preparing to try and run him over with his car, but an autopsy requested by Hammond's parents showed their son was shot in the side and the back - so it's still unclear how he could have been getting ready to run Tiller over.

As in the case of any kid who's unarmed and committing a relatively minor offense (or no offense) when they're killed by a member of law enforcement, regardless of race or ethnicity, I really feel bad for the parents, family and friends of the victim.

There's something deeply troubling about a young person on the cusp of life who's simply making a mistake have his or her life taken by someone who's sworn to "serve and protect."

That's not to say that members of law enforcement who risk their lives to protect us don't have the right to use deadly force when necessary; but a 19-year old kid sitting in the parking lot of a Hardees when his 23-year old date sells a bag of weed to an undercover cop? C'mon.

Zachary's parents Angie and Paul Hammond

I blogged about this incident back on August 17th in the wake of his parent's public complaints that the media wasn't paying attention to their son's death at the hands of an overzealous cop.

I made the observation that major media outlets including the The New York Times, The Washington and other outlets around the world had covered Hammond's killing.

But his death was somewhat overshadowed by the killing of African-American motorist Samuel DuBose seven days earlier.

If you recall, the week that Hammond was shot in South Carolina, there was something of a media frenzy over the release of the body cam footage of University of Cincinnati campus cop Ray Tensing shooting DuBose in the head at point blank range while DuBose had his hands up.

Plus, Sandra Bland's arrest in Texas had taken place on July 10th, so the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death were the subject of global media scrutiny at the time.

Also Seneca PD hadn't yet released any video footage of Tiller shooting Hammond - and now we know why.

If you haven't watched it yet, take a look at this 42 second video clip taken from the dash cam of Lt. Mark Tiller's police vehicle.

Seneca PD Lt. Mark Tiller

There's no sound and it's not bloody or anything and you can't actually see Zachary Hammond.

What you can see is Hammond attempting to pull away and flee the scene after Tiller pulls up and draws his pistol.

Now as I've said before, I'm no expert on police tactics or use of force.

But as an average reasonable citizen, from this video I think it's pretty clear that Hammond was not at all aiming his car towards Lt. Tiller to intentionally try and run him down.

In fact Tiller is clearly at the side of Hammond's vehicle as the terrified kid tries to make a run for it; fleeing the scene was a crime but he shouldn't have been shot and killed for it.

At no time is the front of Hammond's car aimed towards Tiller.

Judge for yourself. Click the link above and watch it a couple times; does that look like a legit claim of "self defense", or an overzealous cop who unloaded his weapon on an unarmed kid who'd just sold some weed to an undercover agent?

Regardless, the Solicitor for the Tenth Circuit Court, Chrissy Adams, decided the evidence warranted no charges for the man who took Zachary Hammond's life. As she said in a statement earlier today:

"After careful consideration of the facts of the case, a thorough review of the state investigation, and an extensive review of all applicable law, I have decided that no criminal charges should be filed against Lt. Mark Tiller at the state level."

There are a lot of families in this country used to hearing statements like that.

And here we are again, another dead kid and another case of blatant and unnecessary use of deadly force by a police officer whose wrongdoing and error in judgement has been concealed by the blanket claim of "self defense".

 




 

19-Year Old Zachary Hammond: Unarmed Teen Killed By Police On A First Date

Zachary Hammond - another U.S. teenager killed by police

Zachary Hammond was just 19-years old when he was fatally shot by police Lt. Mark Tiller in the parking lot of a Hardee's restaurant in Seneca, South Carolina back on Sunday July 26th.

His parents are making national headlines because they're suggesting the media doesn't seem to be paying much attention to their son's death because he was white.

As an amateur citizen-journalist, I blog under the proverbial radar of mass media so I certainly can't speak for the mainstream media, but I do consume quite a bit of it so I wanted to share a couple thoughts.

First off, the media IS paying attention to this story.

And not just here in America where The Washington Past and The New York Times are both on this story, but over in the UK where the Independent is just one of the British media outlets covering it, to as far away as Russia where RT.com has been covering the story as well.

While I absolutely agree with the teenage victim's parent's Paul and Angie Hammond that their son's story didn't morph into a major story in the week after the incident occurred, I don't view it as a case of the media (or the public) not caring about the story at all.

Ten-year Seneca PD Lt. Mark Tiller and his K-9 dog

The Media has been proactive in trying to uncover and share more information about Lt. Mark Tiller (pictured left) and his record as a police officer, as in this article posted on FoxCarolina.com on August 10th.

But in terms of the amount of media coverage, and how quickly it materialized, it's true it didn't immediately blow up into a front-page national story in the days immediately following the incident, but I think that was more of a case of really bad timing.

Zachary Hammond was shot and killed on the evening of Sunday July 26th, just seven days after African-American motorist Samuel Dubose was shot in the head at point blank range by former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing.

The media headlines that week were totally focused on the body-cam footage of the incident that had been released at the behest of the prosecutor, who was so shocked at Tensing's actions that he insisted the body-cam footage be released publicly - in no small part to make clear that these were the actions of an individual campus cop and not the Cincinnati Police Department.

By Thursday July 30th when I posted a blog about the Dubose incident, that was THE focus on social and mainstream media that week as the clip of his death was viewed millions of times on Youtube and was being mentioned in national, local and global media day and night.

It's also important to note that two weekends before Hammond was killed in South Carolina, the death of Sandra Bland took place in Texas on Friday July 10th.

By the time I blogged about that story a week later on July 17th, again, video footage taken from the dash-cam of Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia's cruiser revealing both video and audio of what led to the confrontation and Bland's arrest was THE story of the moment - millions of people around the globe were watching, sharing and commenting on the video which clearly showed trooper Encinia's demeanor and actions.

That's one of the major differences in these three cases.

Police tape surrounds the scene in SC where Hammond died.

It's not like people aren't shocked and saddened to see yet another American teenager gunned down and killed by a member of the law enforcement community.

But the night Zachary Hammond was killed in the parking lot of that Hardee's (pictured left), America was already riveted by two different cases of police misconduct in which innocent, unarmed motorists had lost their lives.

Given the fact they have insisted that he was out on a first date and was unarmed, it's completely understandable that Hammond's poor parents would be upset that the death of their son didn't garner the kind of attention Sandra Bland's death received.

But remember, no video of any part of this incident has been released as of yet. No security camera footage from the Hardee's that might have shown what happened in the parking lot.

Nor has the public yet had a chance to see police dash-cam or body-cam footage from Seneca police officer Mark Tiller either.

That footage might shed some insight and perspective into what happened between the time that Toni Morton (the 23-year-old girl Hammond was with at the time of the shooting) tried to sell the small amount of marijuana she had in her possession to undercover agent of the Seneca PD - and the time that the officer approached the car and shot Hammond twice.

As I write this, there's been no definitive comprehensive statement from the officer who shot Hammond about what happened and the sequence of events that led to his killing the unarmed teenager.

Was he "threatened" by a 19-year old teenager sitting in a car where a tiny amount of weed had just been sold by a 23-year old girl?

Did it really make sense for Seneca PD to have some kind of undercover "sting operation" set up for under 10 grams of weed that could easily fit in your pocket?

Regardless, Tiller is claiming self-defense.

Seneca police claim Hammond tried to run Tiller down with his car as the officer approached the vehicle, but the results from a private autopsy requested by Hammond's parents show that the teenager was shot in the side and in the back - so how could he have been driving towards officer Mark Tiller when he was shot?

Remember, Ray Tensing said nearly the same thing about Samuel Dubose - claiming Dubose was dragging him along as he tried to escape; until the body-cam showed Dubose had his hands up when he was shot and the car only moved after Tensing shot him in the head.

When 50-year old Walter Scott was shot in the back multiple times by South Carolina police officer Michael Slager back in April, his initial claims of feeling "threatened" were quickly exposed as lies when not only dashboard video of the incident showing the initial traffic stop was released - a bystander happened to be nearby filming the pursuit and caught the image of Slager shooting a man in the back as he ran away.

So while Hammond's grieving parents want answers, I respectfully think it would be far more productive for them to devote their energy and actions towards demanding the release of any dash-cam or body-cam video from the Seneca Police Department; or any parking lot video taken by a security camera at the Hardee's.

I just don't think it's fair for them to "expect" some kind of public reaction when the public hasn't seen what happened; or make the kind of judgment that the public or the media doesn't care because Zachary Hammond wasn't African-America - we care and we want to know the facts.

Public outrage and civic action needs to start at the local community level, and the Hammonds have expressed disappointment that they haven't seen more from people in their local community or local politicians weigh in; a rally for justice for Zachary Hammond scheduled for August 15th was being organized by a group called Put Down The Guns Now Young People - so there are people standing up.

Like so many other teens whose lives have been cut short by the actions of police officers in recent months, Zachary Hammond was unarmed when he was shot twice and killed.

And like so many other cases that have garnered national attention, the only reason the Seneca police even encountered Hammond in the first place was because of a relatively minor completely non-violent violation.

To me this incident is not only highlights the need for national reforms of use-of-force procedures and the mandatory use of body-cams for all police officers, it also bolsters the argument for legalization of marijuana in this country.

Do we really want police shooting people for under 10 grams of weed in this country?

The world hasn't yet been able to see video of the incident, but the world is getting tired of seeing American police officers fatally shooting unarmed suspects for things that shouldn't even warrant a ticket.

We'll know more when video of the incident is released to the public, but regardless of skin color, no unarmed American teenager out on a first date on a warm July evening with a girl who has a little bit of pot on her should end up dead; let alone at the hands of an officer of the law.

That's not protecting and serving anyone.

Jordan Edwards & Cops Using Cars As License to Kill

Jordan Edwards, shot & killed by Balch Springs PD

Given the high profile announcements of bold policy changes from America's revamped Department of Justice over the past few weeks, the DOJ's silence in recent days has been deafening.

Particularly in the wake of the shocking death of 15-year-old Mesquite High School freshman Jordan Davis late Saturday evening in Texas at the hands of police officer Roy Oliver.



As multiple media outlets, including the Dallas News, are reporting, Jordan was one of what witnesses said were about a hundred teenagers who were attending a party at the home of a woman named Lisa Roberson on Saturday night in Balch Springs, Texas about 15 miles from Dallas.

Roberson was out of town, and like millions of other American teens (including your's truly) have done on occasion, her son threw a party.

But problems arose when large numbers of teens began milling about in neighbor's driveways on Baron Drive, and a resident named Dora Daniels called police because she was concerned about underage drinking.

When members of the Balch Springs PD arrived, teens naturally began scattering and at some point multiple witnesses heard what sounded like gun shots - which, given the conservative Republican-majority Texas state legislature's efforts to allow people to openly carry firearms virtually anywhere in public, isn't all that surprising.

Hearing the shots, Jordan Edwards, his two brothers Vidal and Kevon and two other friends jumped in a car and tried to drive away, but according to witnesses, a Balch Springs PD officer Roy Oliver approached the vehicle and was heard cursing loudly before he fired three shots from a rifle into the passenger side window - striking Davis in the head and killing him.

Edwards two brothers and their two other friends were roughly handcuffed and arrested as their brother and friend lay bleeding in the front seat of the vehicle.

Heartbroken parents Charmaine and Odell Edwards
at a press conference on Monday 

The specifics of this latest example of excessive use of force by police against a young unarmed man are painfully familiar to most Americans.

Jordan Edwards wasn't committing a crime.

He was unarmed and he'd done absolutely nothing to threaten or harm anyone, including the police officer who shot him in the head with a rifle.

The officer who shot him initially tried a tactic familiar to Americans too:


He lied to investigators to try and make it seem like he "feared for his personal safety" in order to try and justify taking the life of an unarmed American child.

The unnamed officer's initial claims that the car in which Edwards and his friends were driving had reversed and was somehow moving towards him in an "aggressive manner" were publicly, and to the Balch Springs PD's credit, quickly dismissed as bogus.

As Liam Stack and Christine Hauser reported in the New York Times yesterday, Balch Springs PD police chief Jonathan Haber announced that a review of video evidence showed that the car in which Edwards and his friends were driving was moving away from officer Oliver when he fired the fatal shots - not towards him.

Sound familiar? It should.

Remember back in July of 2015 when Seneca (South Carolina) PD lieutenant Mark Tiller shot and killed 19-year-old Zachary Hammond in the parking lot of a local Hardee's after the kid tried to drive away in the wake of a buy and bust operation?

19-year-old Zachary Hammond 

Hammond's 23-year-old date had unknowingly sold a small bag of weed to an undercover cop, when Lt. Tiller ran up to the vehicle with his pistol drawn, the poor kid panicked and tried to drive away.

Tiller fatally shot Hammond in the back and in the side, claiming he'd been forced to kill Hammond in self-defense because he feared the scared 19-year-old was going to run him over.


But a 42-second clip of police dashboard video of the incident showed that Hammond's vehicle was not only slowly trying to drive away, Tiller actually made multiple efforts to put himself in front of the vehicle.

Watch it for yourself, does that look like Hammond is purposefully trying to run Tiller over?

I'm not saying it was right for Hammond to try and flee, but neither was Tiller's decision to shoot and kill a scared kid who obviously terrified of being busted with weed in the car - he didn't deserve to be shot for that.

Investigators eventually ruled that Tiller had acted in self defense and he faced no charges.

The very same week that Hammond was shot in South Carolina back in July of 2015, the world was reacting in horror to the video footage of former University of Cincinnati campus police officer Ray Tensing shooting unarmed motorist Samuel Dubose in the head at point blank range while the motorist had his hands in the air.

Tensing, who was famously wearing a black t-shirt with a Confederate battle flag on it under his uniform when he pulled Dubose over for a missing license plate, initially told investigators that he'd been forced to shoot Dubose because the driver was dragging him along with his car.

But body-cam footage showed that the only reason that Dubose's car was moving was because Tensing had inexplicably shot the man in the head, forcing Dubose to slump forward and hit the accelerator.

Balch Springs PD officer Roy Oliver

While nothing can be done to bring back the victims of these flagrant and totally unjustified uses of deadly force, the rapidly expanding use of video technology on police vehicle dashboards and on the officers themselves is slowly starting to shed light on the propensity of some members of law enforcement to try and shield wrongdoing behind false allegations that a driver was trying to use a car to hurt or kill them.

The speed with which Balch Springs PD chief Jonathan Haber has moved to expose Roy Oliver's lies and fire him from the force is a clear indicator that, to a degree, technology is helping to pierce the Blue Wall of Silence that has shielded some members of law enforcement from facing responsibility for their actions.

But it's not just technology in this case.

After the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and so many other young unarmed Americans, there's also a growing recognition taking place.

Not just amongst the families of the victims, but also amongst law enforcement professionals, judges, local and city officials and the public at large that something is dangerously wrong with the way that some cops interact with young men.

But in the case of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards, it's also the character of the young man himself that's led to the swift removal of Roy Oliver from the force for his actions last Saturday night.

The Mesquite High School body and the Texas community in which he and his family lived has been devastated by his death.

This is a kid who was a straight A student with an excellent GPA, and a great personality who was also a gifted student-athlete who was just getting ready to start a new football season and an exciting new chapter in his life.

This was a kid who'd left an impact on people he knew, including the Mesquite HS football coach who said of Edwards:

"You create a checklist of everything you would want in a player, a son, a teammate, a friend and Jordan had all that. He was that kid." 

There must be consequences for taking that away without just cause or reason, but as the Edwards' family attorney Lee Merritt said in response to the news of Oliver being fired, that's not enough.

The road to justice for Jordan Edwards, his family, his friends and his community is going to be a long one, and there won't be any help from Jeff Sessions' Department of Justice - so it's going to be up to the local and state courts to hold Oliver accountable for his actions.

In the meantime, instead of a high school freshman roster, Jordan Edwards joins the tragic list of the The Counted in America.

Ben Fields Fired - Disparities in Classroom Discipline Based on Race

Ex-Deputy Ben Fields

In April, 33-year old police officer Michael Slager was caught on video shooting unarmed African-American driver Walter Scott eight times in the back as Scott fled a routine traffic stop on foot. 
 
Just two months later in June, 21-year old self-described white supremacist Dylan Roof's senseless massacre of nine unarmed African-American members of the Emanuele AME Church in Charleston during an evening bible study horrified the nation and the world.

A month later on July 10th, after intense debate in the South Carolina legislature and public pressure, the Confederate flag was taken down from in front of the statehouse permanently.

But even though that divisive symbol of hatred and racial oppression has been relegated to a museum, the legacy of that flag still seems to fly over the Palmetto State.

A day after a controversial court ruling that no criminal state charges will be filed against Seneca, South Carolina police lieutenant Mark Tiller for shooting and killing unarmed 19-year old Zachary Hammond on July 25th as he tried to flee a minor drug bust, the Richland County Sherriff's Department announced that Deputy Ben Fields has been fired in the wake of a shocking video showing him violently dragging an African-American female high school student from her desk and throwing her across the room.       

It's fair to assume that a healthy chunk of the American populace have seen the disturbing video clip of Fields loosing control in a Spring Valley High School classroom - and the varied reactions to it once again illustrate the extent to which issues related to race in this country continue to divide us.

CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin 1 - Don Lemon - 0

Yesterday I was watching a heated CNN discussion on the video and I thought legal analyst Sunny Hostin (pictured left) was going to pitch a fit when Don Lemon suggested that the media needed to withhold judgement on Ben Fields' actions until all the facts about what prompted the incident were known.

She made headlines herself for tearing Don a new so-and-so on a live broadcast.

When she said "Are you guys kidding me??" I seriously thought the television screen was going to crack.

On the other side of the spectrum, there were the inevitable conservative voices who predictably blamed the teenaged student whose use of a cell phone in class, sass and refusal to stop using the phone prompted Fields being summoned to the classroom.

During an appearance on Fox's The Kelly File yesterday, the dependably racist, unbalanced fringe Birther Glenn Beck leaped to the defense of Fields:
  
"The police officer is being put in an absolutely no-win situation and we're sitting around speculating on what he did. What about the teacher? What about the school? What about all the other teachers in all the other schools that now this is being seen on television and they know "all I have to do -- I can punch a police officer, I can resist arrest, and the cop's going to get in trouble." This is an absolute ticket to anarchy, which is exactly what many in our country would like."

"Ticket to anarchy", riiiight.

Mark Fuhrman: Fields used "Soft control" - Huh?

As MediaMatters.org reported, Former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman (who has admitted to intentionally targeting blacks as a police officer because he's a racist) had a rather interesting take on Fields' police technique on the unarmed female student during an appearance on Hannity yesterday when he said:

"I'll tell you why it's not excessive. He verbalized, he made contact, he verbalized, he was polite. He requested her. He verbally did that. The next level is he put a hand on her. She escalated it from there. He used soft control. He threw her on the ground, he handcuffed her. He didn't use mace. He didn't use a Taser. He didn't use a stick. He didn't kick her. He didn't hit her. He didn't choke her. He used a minimal amount of force necessary to effect an arrest."

Soft control. I guess that's where Fields threw the girl across the room onto the carpet? Got it.

Hopefully the result of the intense media scrutiny of this video will prompt greater public scrutiny of the wide disparities in school discipline based on race and ethnicity in this country; a topic which has been covered on this blog multiple times.

If you're interested in looking at some of the hard data on how the race of the student impacts the frequency and severity of school discipline, take a few minutes to look at the blog I published back on February 8th of this year entitled "Separate & Unequal: Who's Getting Disciplined in U.S. Schools and Why".

I don't mean to just "wave my own flag" or anything, I'm pressed for time as I have to get some laundry done before I go watch the GOP presidential debate and Buster the Cat gets tense when dinner is late.

So click the link above. There are some good links to Nina Stochlic's February 5th Daily Beast article on how the trend towards more frequent and severe discipline for students of color in this country is increasing; you can find links to an in-depth Department of Education report on disparities in school discipline based on race as well.

Remember, Ben Fields' actions in that Spring Valley High School classroom are not an anomaly in this nation; they're part of a wider trend that merits attention and action on the parts of teachers, administrators and most of all parents.

I doubt Mark Fuherman would call Fields' actions "soft control" if it was his own daughter being ripped out of her desk and dragged across the floor like an animal.

A lot of people are calling for charges to be filed against Fields, I'm curious to see if that happens in a state like South Carolina where violent overreactions by white police officers on unarmed people (black and white) engaged in relatively harmless rule violations seems to be disturbingly common.