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Zachary Hammond was on a first date when he was fatally shot by a police officer in his car during a drug bust in South Carolina, his family says.<\/p>\n
At the time the 19-year-old was shot and killed, his date, Tori Morton, was eating an ice cream cone, according to the family\u2019s attorney, Eric Bland.<\/p>\n
Morton, 23, was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana \u2014 all 10 grams of it \u2014 which, according to police, was the reason undercover agents set up the drug buy.<\/p>\n
The official police report never mentioned the two gunshots that killed Hammond on July 26 in a Hardees parking lot. Seneca police say a second report \u2014 which has not been released to the public \u2014 details the officer\u2019s account of the shooting.<\/p>\n
Amid heightened scrutiny of fatal police shootings across the country, Hammond\u2019s death has prompted numerous questions, few answers \u2014 and almost no national outrage.<\/p>\n
More than a week after Hammond\u2019s death, his family\u2019s attorney says race is almost certainly playing a role in the disconcerting silence. Unlike the victims in the highest-profile police shootings over the past year \u2014 in cities from\u00a0Ferguson<\/a> and Cleveland<\/a> to North Charleston<\/a> and Cincinnati<\/a> \u2014 Hammond was white.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s sad, but I think the reason is, unfortunately, the media and our government officials have treated the death of an unarmed white teenager differently than they would have if this were a death of an unarmed black teen,\u201d Bland told The Washington Post this week. \u201cThe hypocrisy that has been shown toward this is really disconcerting.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThe issue should never be what is the color of \u00a0the victim.\u00a0The issue should be: Why was an unarmed teen gunned down in a situation where deadly force was not even justified?\u201d<\/p>\n So far this year, 25 percent of the people shot dead by police have been black,according to data collected by the Washington Post<\/a>. But black people make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population.<\/p>\n Police say the officer was a victim of \u201cattempted murder\u201d by Hammond, who was driving the vehicle. According to Seneca Police Chief John Covington, Hammond was driving the car \u201ctoward the officer\u201d who was trying to make the stop.<\/p>\n The officer fired twice, striking Hammond in the shoulder and torso.<\/p>\n His death was classified as a homicide; an autopsy conducted by the Oconee County Coroner\u2019s Office did not specify from which direction the bullets hit Hammond\u2019s body.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Hammond\u2019s family released the results of a private autopsy, which concluded that both bullets entered Hammond\u2019s body from the back. According to the autopsy, the second bullet proved to be fatal, entering from the back of Hammond\u2019s left side and passing through his chest, piercing his lungs and heart.<\/p>\n In a statement Wednesday, Coroner Karl E. Addis said he does not know how Hammond\u2019s body was positioned at the time he was shot.<\/p>\n The facts of the fatal shooting are not unlike other cases that have prompted national outcry \u2014 most recently the shooting death of Sam DuBose, an unarmed black man who was shot dead during a traffic stop by a University of Cincinnati police officer. Officials released police dashboard camera footage of the incident which appeared to contradict the officer\u2019s report that he was being dragged by DuBose\u2019s vehicle<\/a>. The video showed that the car was not moving when the weapon was fired and the officer was named and charged with murder.<\/a><\/p>\n The officer, who has been placed on administrative leave while the investigation is pending, used a similar rationale as the one in Cincinnati \u2014 that the vehicle was being used as a weapon.<\/p>\n