Family of white teen shot by police asks for federal probe

[Historic NY]

Source: Reuters.com

The family of a 19-year-old man shot dead by police through the open window of the car where he was sitting asked the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday to investigate the incident.

Zachary Hammond died on July 26 in the small upstate town of Seneca, South Carolina.

"The issues that surround the death of Zachary Hammond are issues of national significance," family attorneys Eric Bland and Ronald Richter Jr. said in a statement on Tuesday. "While many other recent events have involved white on black police shootings, police brutality and the excessive use of force are race neutral issues."

Police have said Hammond drove his Honda Civic directly at officers when they asked him to put his hands on the steering wheel during a stop that was part of a drug sting.

Seneca Police Chief John Covington said in a news release on Friday that Lt. Mark Tiller, who fired at Hammond, was "the victim of attempted murder."




Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/11/us-usa-south-carolina-hammond-idUSKCN0QG24V20150811

---

We haven't heard much about these don't know why??

[tularetom]

1. And yet the reaction to this has been

I can't imagine why.

[7962]

2. I posted the original story; it got three posts.

Your question is a valid one. Whites are getting killed or wounded by bad cops too. But here its not going to ruffle feathers. Because its so horrific to state that "All lives matter"
And the bad cops love the divisiveness.........

"police brutality and the excessive use of force are race neutral issues."

If only we could see the forest......

[trillion]

26. Wrong. It's not gettng attention because whites haven't went out and started protesting and

kept it in the news. You don't have to steal from black lives matter (and diminishing it with white lives matter does steal from them as they are being severely disproportionately killed. You could stand on end police violence and meld with the black lives matter movement that way.

[7962]

50. You cant see the forest for the trees........

what you want to do is convince EVERYONE that they are at risk of being killed or abused by rogue cops. Because they ARE. Continuing to focus on "black lives" just makes a lot of people who dont pay attention to the news (which is most people) think "Well thats terrible. I sure am glad I'm not black". It divides the issue as a racial issue and turns off a lot of people.
And the cops LOVE it every step of the way because the focus starts to be on road blockades, shutting down speeches, interrupting people eating a meal, etc, and NOT on them.
A great plan would be for a group of the BLM folks to go and protest this white kid's shooting. THAT would draw a lot of good attention.

[Spacedog1973]

28. It takes two women

To bring attention to an issue. Grab a friend and make it an issue.

[romanic]

3. I hope they get justice

Police brutality affects everyone!

[Historic NY]

4. Hey I'm just saying this isn't reserved to one , race or creed.....

if your going to highlight incidents be inclusive not exclusive. Really #alllivesmatter really do matter.


http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-isnt-the-media-interested-in-an-unarmed-white-teen-being-shot-by-police-10448669.html

[DustyJoe]

7. So very true

#WLM also

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Except young black males are 21 times more likely to be killed by police

than young white males.

http://www.propublica.org/article/deadly-force-in-black-and-white

And this year alone, blacks were more than twice as likely to be unarmed when killed by LOE.

The nation is sick. It has been sick for a very long time. And it will take a long time to heal it.

[7962]

10. So then they're TWICE as likely to be killed. Unarmed is the only fact that matters

The "21 times more likely" is a false comparison. Obviously the vast majority are armed, in which case tough shit.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. You didn't read what the 2 links are saying

One focuses on young black males vs young white males. The other focuses on blacks in general, with no age or gender associated. The assumption that everyone else killed were "armed" is silly given that any man with a pocket knife (something that at one time was very common) or woman with a nail file or a child with a toy water pistol or a tween with a flip phone or a toddler with a rock, could be considered "armed" by idiotic LOE (considering a number have been shot and killed merely for the nonsense of "reaching into their waist band&quot . And I won't get into the 2nd Amendment argument because none of the Constitutional Amendments apply to black folk. In essence, the Dred Scott v Sanford decision remains in de facto in effect.

But on DU of late, knee-jerk dismissal of statistical virulent racism is de jure and definitely not surprising.

[7962]

47. Actually I did. The Guardian article shows that most killed are armed.

Now they're also using POLICE statistics. And they police are known for under reporting or not reporting at all. But since those are the only numbers we have, thats what we go by. 32% of blacks killed were listed as unarmed, which means 68% were listed as armed.
The fact still remains that more unarmed blacks are killed than whites. No question.
But "unarmed" can also mean 2 different things. If you're beating the hell out of me with your fists and I shoot you, you'd be considered unarmed. But not to ME because I was the one being beaten. Would the police consider you "armed" or not? Who knows?

But the numbers of BOTH whites and blacks killed are going up. Why? In my opinion, its because more cops are on a power trip more than a racist trip. I wonder if cops involved in deadly force incidents are tested for steroids? A lot of their behavior sure would make sense if they were on the gas.

And if you're going to accuse DU of dismissal of statistics, you're right. Crime stats are almost ALWAYS dismissed here too because nobody likes them.

[BumRushDaShow]

49. Here's the problem with your argument

When it comes to giving someone the benefit of the doubt, whether it's a white cop or black cop, they have been culturally conditioned to believe (as Joe Madison says daily) that "whites are superior, blacks are inferior and the manifestation of that is that blacks are undervalued, underestimated, and marginalized". I.e., you see it with the type of training - just recently where it was uncovered that N. Miami had a shooting range for LOE that used black mug shots for target practice.

And if an officer saw this child with a REAL rifle, guarantee he would hesitate, let alone refuse to shoot her down -



But this child was shot 2 seconds after the lunatic cop rolled up on him and he had a toy gun -



There's some deep bullshit that has gone on in this country for centuries and DUers can dance around it all they want.

[trillion]

29. Source that the majoirty are armed?

[7962]

48. Sure, its in post #8

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/black-americans-killed-by-police-analysis

Over 60% of blacks killed were armed. 85% of whites killed were armed.

And as i said above, the numbers of both whites & blacks being killed unarmed have been going up. I think it has more to do with abuse of power than anything else. And I'd love to see cops tested for steroids

[trillion]

27. No but it disproportionately affects the blacks.

And nobody ever said it belonged to one race or creed. If you want attention for police brutality, how about getting out and protesting, starting a movement and keeping it in the news. Right now people on this thread seem to feel they should do nothing but complain that Black Lives get attention while doing nothing for white police brutality to get attention. What's your guy's real gripe- that the blacks aren't protesting for you? Start your own movement. You don't need to diminish theirs.

[LanternWaste]

43. Conflating the statistical standard with the statistical aberration is a convenient misstep...

Conflating the statistical standard with the statistical aberration is a convenient misstep for the irrationally biased.

[valerief]

5. The police probably thought he was black. In America, that makes it okay. nt

[trillion]

30. I'm trying to figure out how anyone could miss that sarcasm.

[davidpdx]

36. Me too, especially since it cost the person

On Wed Aug 12, 2015, 07:05 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

You wish
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1174691

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

wow no place for this on DU.

JURY RESULTS

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Wed Aug 12, 2015, 07:10 AM, and the Jury voted 6-1 to HIDE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Ike, please look up "sarcasm."
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Troll or just dim? Beats me but this one goes.
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: I have no idea what the justification was for this person calling the person they replied to that word, but it was uncalled for.
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

I was juror 6.

[graegoyle]

6. Have whites been SYSTEMATICALLY targeted because of the color of their skin?

Any death can be tragic, but, these days, police killing of whites is spillover of policing agents enforcing segregationist policies. The focus has broadened to include the poor in general and has become rather random.

But the modern stem is violence against blacks; whites have become collateral damage. When the policing of blacks becomes more civil, the policing of whites will follow that trend. The emphasis by some posters on this site on white police victims is myopic and telling.

[TeddyR]

9. Do you claim

That blacks have been SYSTEMATICALLY targeted by all law enforcement?

[Comrade Grumpy]

18. I think you're the one suffering from some myopia.

Racism is part of the problem.

Capitalism is part of the problem.

Militarized policing is part of the problem.

Guns everywhere is part of the problem.

EVERY victim of an unjust police killing deserves to be advocated for. It's not a zero sum game--if we pay attention to white victims we have to ignore black ones. Or vice versa.

[Chakab]

11. You people should leave the sniping about BLM for the umpteen other threads and instead focus your

outrage on the police actions in this incident.

The cop claimed that he fired because the kid was trying to run him over, but the autopsy showed that the fatal shots were fired through the driver's side window. Unless the car was somehow equipped to drive sideways, the cop is blatantly lying and the legal establishment in that town is backing him.

[mercuryblues]

33. Not only that

The official autopsy was fudged (by who I don't know) The cops said he was driving his car towards the cop that shot him. The media was told Hammond was shot in the chest and shoulder. Leaving the impression that he was shot head on.

The family had a private autopsy done and lo and behold, Hammond was shot in the side part of the chest and shoulder. He could not have been driving his car towards to cop in an attempt to run him over.

ALM people need to remember this:

If they'll do it with you; they'll do it to you.

[valerief]

41. Excellent point. nt

[Dustlawyer]

12. A kid is dead, parents grieve, and a cop gets caught in a lie and nothing happens.

Bad no matter what color any of them are!

[Blue_Tires]

13. "...Don't know why?" I'll tell you--

AFAIK, the victim wasn't killed because he was white and/or automatically presumed to be a dangerous criminal...

Because he was white, CNN, Fox News, etc. aren't going to dig into every single disciplinary issue he's had since middle school, they aren't going to slur his parents for being divorced, they aren't going to prop up the myth that he 'caused his own death' and they aren't going to shoehorn him into some Hollywoodized "Thug" stereotype...

Conservative bloggers aren't going to circulate fake selfies of some tatted-up 6'4, 255lb tough guy and pass it off as the victim...

The gun nutters aren't going to start a million-dollar GoFundMe for the cop's defense...

And finally cops frequently if not typically lose their badges and their freedom when killing unarmed white teenagers...

[7962]

15. Dont forget to add "and they'll be no national news coverage or protests over it"

[cstanleytech]

16. Nor rioting. nt

[Blue_Tires]

17. I'm sorry, what's stopping those parents and that community from protesting?

(And for the record, were said parents present at any of OUR protests the past three years? One of them was right in their state...)

They'd get some media coverage then, but at the end of the day it will still go down as an accidental shooting, and unless there is a juicy media angle to it (i.e., racial profiling), there will be little to no national coverage...

Why is that so hard for people to figure out?

[LanternWaste]

44. An aberration rarely results in a protest as would the systemic targeting of race.

An aberration rarely results in a protest as would the systemic targeting of race. (space provided below to rationalize a distinction lacking any difference)

[blackspade]

14. Um, no.

"police brutality and the excessive use of force are race neutral issues."

Only if you ignore the overwhelming numbers of cops brutalizing and killing POC.
It is a growing problem outside of the AA community, but there is no parity here.
Not to say that the cops didn't murder this kid and that the DOJ shouldn't look into it, but again this is an exception to the rule for now.

[Comrade Grumpy]

19. I think cops killed about 350 black people last year. And about 850 non-black people.

The issue of an out of control criminal justice system isn't limited to black people. Plenty of people of all colors get fucked over by the cops. I also think it's politically dumb to make this a black issue instead of a blue issue. Both parts need to be addressed.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

21. +1 n/t

[Chemisse]

34. I agree. Clearly blacks are targeted at higher proportions due to racism.

And the incidents involving blacks being killed are incredibly blatant.

But it's not a contest. We can value non-black lives as well. Mentally ill people of all colors are particularly vulnerable. The goal is police reform.

[LanternWaste]

45. your alleged numbers are predicated on an inherently biased sample

Departments are not required to submit this data, it's voluntary. Hence, your alleged numbers are predicated on an inherently biased sample.

[7962]

51. Amen, CG! They just dont get it. You're spot on. nt

[questionseverything]

20. for now being the correct phrase

whenever an authoritarian govt decides to control the population they start out by picking on a small,weak, or impoverished group...in other words, people who can not fight back

hilter did not start by murdering jews, he actually started with disabled people and gypsys....any group that can be considered "other"

once the general population begins to accept it the authoritarian govt extends it to another group....this is proven over and over throughout history

it is why we must stand together

just my opinion

[romanic]

22. Kicking this reply

A million times over! Yes indeed.

I want to copy and paste this to people who say "but blacks are more likely to be killed by police". No shit we already know; that doesn't make it okay to ignore victims of police brutality because they're not black. If you care about a just system, then advocate for everyone under that system which includes all races and creeds.

[Reformed Bully]

37. Germany started, pre -Hitler. 1919 with the "Rhineland Bastards"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhineland_Bastard
African - German children.

[Igel]

39. Your timeline is a bit off.

There's this idea that this is new. It isn't. What's new is that a lot of people suddenly know about it. "New to us" doesn't mean "new." It's not like "discover," where an organization can claim to discover things known to others and the word still has a reasonable interpretation. "I've discovered this restaurant, it's always been at the corner of 2nd and Broadway" is reasonable and doesn't sound strange; "There's this new restaurant, it's always been at the corner of 2nd and Broadway" is not, it's a self-denying statement.


Claimed to be from UCR reports. Remember, there are holes in the data, and the further back you go the greater the holes. There's been a slight upward trend in the last 15 years, but it's not a huge one.


I'm going to make the assumption that while these are ruled justifiable homicides the number of unjustifiable ones is strongly correlated to that.

For comparison--we like comparisons--here's a particularly brutal chart. Brazil, population currently 2/3 of the US'. Yes, it's growing faster, but this is a relatively small slice of time so that can be ignored:


Note also, though, that Brazil has a large number of police killings--far more than the US, even though the population at present is still 2/3 that of the US.

[Igel]

38. Some points that need to be made.

1. It's not clear that it's a growing problem at all. It's clear that the problem that existed is growing in salience and prominence.

They're different things.

2. We use the expression "POC" as though we had two large ethnic groups and no more in the US. Latinos are there, too, usually lumped into "POC" (even though they have a different assimilation trajectory, for the most part). Their stats are intermediate; I don't know how "Latino" stats break down into black-and-white stats, which is sometimes possible, but that still overlooks those with a large portion of indio in them.

We won't even discuss Asians and the diversity in that exonym or their stats.

3. Consider the approach taken to the new shooting of the 18-year-old in Ferguson versus this one, or the way he's defended to an almost unreasonable extent. Advocacy is fine, but when people start trying to strain at the truth and read all kinds of things into the report just to make their side right it's time to take a deep breath and think, "Critical thinking. Must have coffee and critical thinking."

As for BLM, it's more and more "Black lives matter."

[trillion]

25. I wonder if all the racists on my local news site are going to attack his parents for asking.

I bet they won't have a problem with his parents questioning his death under these new white circumstances.

[mercuryblues]

31. BLM

activists have been tweeting and pushing for this coverage since it happened. Where was ALMs? They do not need BLM permission to protest, to force major media to cover this, yet they are silent. For ALM to take this on they will be forced to admit that police do shoot unarmed non-violent kids for no reason. So really to say ALM to this is nothing more than poutrage in an attempt to smear BLM.

IOW ALM can't say M. Brown deserved to be killed for allegedly stealing some smokes, but Hammond did not for allegedly selling pot.

http://thegrio.com/2015/08/08/white-victims-police-brutality-zachary-hammond/

But there is one important difference that should be noted about how Hammond’s death is being reported versus the reporting done when black men and women are killed by police: He hasn’t had his entire name dragged through the mud. Despite being busted in a set up drug buy, news outlets have not called him a thug, delved deep into his criminal past or even used the phrase “known to police.” Had he been black, Hammond would’ve been murdered twice: First, having his body taken by the police, and second, having his character assassinated by the press.

It is in no way, shape or form our responsibility to include or protect the lives of people from other communities, because they have been endowed with the same access and ability to propagate their own issues as well. But, it should be duly noted that the main people who have been speaking out on behalf of Zachary Hammond have been black journalists and black activists, more so than anyone else of any other color.

If white people want outrage for the death of Zachary Hammond, then make noise and try to achieve public change. But that would require you to stop victim-blaming murdered suspects of excessive police violence. That would require you to stop crowd funding murderous officers.

[trillion]

32. Awesome post!

[Ichingcarpenter]

35. US Police Admit Shooting Unarmed White Man To Prove They’re Not Racist

A CLOUD of controversy has gathered over US police after they admitted to shooting dead an unarmed white man in an effort to conclusively prove that there isn’t an endemic problem of racism within their ranks.

“Come on, you can’t honestly, in good conscience accuse of us of racism now, can you?” Greg Shaprio, a member of the South Carolina police eagerly force told a group of journalists at a press conference convened on the scene of the shooting.

This latest shooting marks a turn in public perception of US police as officers involved are forced to answer difficult questions about why they shot a white man.

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2015/08/07/us-police-admit-shooting-unarmed-white-man-to-prove-theyre-not-racist/

satire

[questionseverything]

46. i almost missed the satire line

seriously tho i wonder if some folks don't think the solution is the police murdering more whites......will that provide the parity they seek?

of course not,the solution is to prosecute every officer involved in a murder...the first time i saw an article about police using the "car as a weapon defense" was almost 20 years ago and it involved a white disabled man being shot thru the window after he had passed the police...it was in central illinois and it was because the kid had driven off without paying for gas.....he did this on a regular basis and normally the station owner would call his parents and they would settle up later,this time tho a new attendant called the police and a "rambo cop" responded..with a tragic end

there was a uproar for awhile but eventually the cop was "cleared"

[Gormy Cuss]

40. Again, his race is called out only to distract from #BLM.

The tone of many responses in this thread supports that. If the issue is death-by-cop, the lede is not the victim's race.

[Comrade Grumpy]

42. You'll have to take that up with the Reuters headline writers.

I guess they're part of the conspiracy.

Black people don't have a monopoly on being victimized by the police.

It's almost as if you want us to ignore this death because it didn't happen to a black guy.

[Gormy Cuss]

53. Look back a couple of years ago.

This headline wouldn't have included the word 'white.'

It's obtuse to conclude from my comment that I want people to ignore his death because he's white. This shooting happened in a community that is over 60% non-Latino white, in a county where more than 85% of the residents are white. So why does his whiteness matter to Reuters?

[7962]

52. It sure is in every other cop shooting OP here. nt

[Dont call me Shirley]

54. Zachary...

Stop the killing now.