Police say the officer is now on administrative leave but refuse to release his name for fear of “harassment, intimidation, or abuse”. Hammond’s family has hired an attorney and had an independent autopsy conducted that they said showed the young man’s auto was not moving and the officer was not in danger. A Seneca police report indicated a data card was turned over to state investigators, but whether that card has dashboard camera footage or other data has not been made public.
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A South Carolina teen was shot in the back from close range by police officer who allegedly falsified his report.
But Meredith Clark, an assistant professor at the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas, told CNN she thinks there would likely be more media coverage if video of the scene was available.
“The central issue remains the same: As a society we need to curb the excessive and deadly force by our police departments in situations where such force is unwarranted”, attorneys Eric Bland and Ronald L. Richter, Jr.
Bland said their investigation has found that two officers approached the vehicle with guns drawn and, in a split second, two shots were fired.
“He’s only 19-years-old and the rest of our lives we are going to live with this,” Paul Hammond said.
The death of Hammond, who was 19, bears some strikingly similarities to the death of Samuel DuBose, a Cincinnati man who was shot by a police officer on July 19.
The story sounds familiar: an unarmed person is shot and killed by a police officer.
That’s why the Obama administration proposed spending $75 million to equip the nation’s officers with body cameras and why the Department of Justice pledged an additional $20 million to the cause. A statement released just before 5 p.m. said Tiller’s personnel records are available to be looked at during normal business hours.
“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”.
There hasn’t been a prominent public outcry like there has been with other police shootings in the past year, and many people are saying that his race is factored into the response (or lack thereof) surrounding his death.
Hammond’s death also highlights a truth many white Americans seem reluctant to face: that police violence can affect anyone – their white friends, cousins, brothers, sisters, even themselves. “Mr. Hammond then rapidly accelerated in the direction of Lt. Tiller, forcing the lieutenant to push off of Mr. Hammond’s auto to keep from being struck and run over”.
In a statement Wednesday, Coroner Karl E. Addis said he does not know how Hammond’s body was positioned at the time he was shot. Many are asserting that the only reason the media reports have not followed after the killing of Hammond is because he was a white teen instead of a black victim of a police officer’s gun.
Bland said Tiller had to have been firing in anger, and he was at an angle at which Hammond was not a threat. In the end, Hammond had been killed and his companion was charged with a minor drug possession.
Kathryn Richardson, a spokeswoman for SLED, said the investigation is continuing.
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Covington also released an incident report filed by Sgt.
