NO OUTRAGE WHEN COPS KILL UNARMED WHITE YOUTH

Zachary Hammond, 19, was unarmed and killed by a Seneca, South Carolina cop in a questionable shooting

On July 26, Zachary Hammond, a 19-year-old white youth, was parked at a Hardees restaurant in Seneca, South Carolina when he was shot dead in his car by a cop as his date Tori Morton, 23, was sitting next to him eating some ice cream.

The police said they were conducting a drug buy operation. An unnamed cop fired two shots through the car’s open window, claiming that he feared for his life because Hammond was driving toward him. But an autopsy showed that the shots came from the back and that the car was not moving.

Tori Morton was found to have 10 grams of pot in her possession and was arrested. Police claimed they had arranged to buy drugs from her.

The Justice Department’s civil rights division, the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI are now opening an investigation into the shooting.

Hammond’s father claims the police murdered his son. So, where is the outrage?

On July 13, Sandra Bland, an African-American woman, was found dead in a Waller County, Texas jail cell, where she had hanged herself after having been arrested for a traffic violation. When her parents insisted that she would not have committed suicide, a media frenzy questioning Bland’s death followed. There have been demonstrations held ever since.

In the recent killings of black men by white cops, police chiefs have been quick to make public the names of the officers responsible as demanded by civil rights activists and demonstrators. Seneca Police Chief John Covington has refused to name the cop who killed Hammond and no one has objected.

Eric Bland, the Hammond family attorney, noted the lack of outrage in this case. “It's sad,” he told The Washington Post this week, “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. The hypocrisy that has been shown toward this is really disconcerting.”

Eric Bland has hit the nail squarely on its head. Had Hammond been black there would have been mass demonstrations all over the country fueled by a protracted media frenzy. But that is not the case with 19-year-old Zachary Hammond because he is white, and apparently ‘White Lives Don’t Matter.’