A local prosecutor in South Carolina said Tuesday that she would not bring charges against a police lieutenant who fatally shot a 19-year-old man during an attempted drug arrest in a Hardee’s parking lot in July. The case has drawn outrage in some quarters, partly because a private autopsy on the man, Zachary Hammond, who was unarmed, indicated that he had been shot from the side and the back, and through his car’s side window. That seemed to contradict the account of the officer who killed him, Lt. Mark Tiller of the Seneca Police Department, who said that he had fired two shots at point-blank range because Mr. Hammond had rapidly accelerated as he drove toward the officer, and that he would have been run over had he not pushed himself off Mr. Hammond’s car. Investigators refused for months to release video of the shooting from the officer’s dashboard camera. That graphic video was released on Tuesday, and it did little to mollify Mr. Hammond’s family or their lawyer.
Source: State Will Not Charge South Carolina Officer Who Killed Zachary Hammond – The New York Times
Black History 360* 