Why was Zachary Hammond shot by police?

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 New York Times reports that teenaged Zachary Hammond was gunned down by Seneca, South Carolina police in what seems to have been a drug bust gone wrong at a local Hardee’s drive thru.

In the first police report, there was no mention of the two gunshots that killed Zachary. Police say a second report – which has not been released to the public – details the officer’s account of the shooting.

Amid heightened scrutiny of fatal police shootings nationwide, Hammond’s death has prompted numerous questions, few answers – and nearly no national outrage.

“If the police officer was white and the victim was African American, the amount of attention on this shooting would be astronomical”, he told The Greenville News.

Eric S. Bland, the Columbia lawyer for the Hammond family, has demanded that members of the media treat the killing of Hammond as they have recent shootings of unarmed black men, and some supporters on social media agree.

Seneca Police Chief John Covington has said in the past that according to Tiller, Hammond drove the vehicle toward him. 45 caliber handgun in the back left shoulder and the left side of his chest: a distinction that is not in the official autopsy and one that he said dashed the impression that the officer was going to be hit by the vehicle.

A white teenager was shot dead by a police officer following an alleged marijuana transaction set up by undercover cops.

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.

“The driver accelerated and came toward the officer”, Chief Covington, said a day after the shooting, according to Fox Carolina.

Hammond died after being shot twice by an undercover police officer.

In a statement, an attorney for Hammond’s family said they are satisfied with the “long overdue” release of Tiller’s name.

“In that case, Hammond fits right in”, she added. They’re not called the black rights organizations. “The color of his skin should not matter”. Others find irony in the fact that the only significant response is coming from those who have been accused – largely by white people – of divisiveness in their efforts to call attention to the value of black lives.

Meredith Clark, an assistant professor at the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas who is conducting research on the Black Lives Matter movement, told the Los Angeles Times the lack of outrage over Hammond’s death did not appear to be race-related.

In a statement on Friday, Covington said that Tiller has no disciplinary actions on his personnel file and that his department would not comment further on the incident, which is now being investigated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED). Mr Berry said it has not yet been determined whether that video will be released.

“The whole issue of race is getting distorted and what’s getting lost is the real issue which is excessive force,” Bland told the Washington Post.