Teen's father: Family will 'keep fighting' for justice after fatal shooting
After seeing for the first time Tuesday a graphic video of his son being shot to death by a Seneca police officer yelling, "I'm gonna shoot your f---ing a--," Paul Hammond said his family plans to "keep fighting" for justice for Zachary.
It was a video that law enforcement and judicial authorities had refused to release for three months, and which 10th Circuit Solicitor Chrissy Adams admitted Tuesday is "troublesome" and "demands answers."
However, after reviewing the dash cam footage in slow motion and frame by frame, she decided not to file criminal charges against Lt. Mark Tiller, concluding that he was justified in firing on the unarmed 19-year-old to protect himself and others from being run over by Hammond's car.
It didn't look that way to Paul Hammond.
"I think they’re grabbing pretty hard saying that Zach was trying to run over the officer. It didn’t look like that in the video to me,” he told The Greenville News. “He’s running beside the car. If anything he put himself in that position. To me it was very sloppy police work.”
“We hope to get some kind of justice somewhere, really," Hammond said. "We just don’t feel like it was a lawful shooting.”
The video -- which had been sought by The Greenville News and other media under Freedom of Information Act requests -- shows Tiller pulling into the parking lot of Hardee's restaurant, accelerating and screeching to a halt behind Hammond's silver Honda Civic. An undercover officer's vehicle is parked beside Hammond's, and its door pops open as Tiller jumps into the scene shouting, “Hands up, put ‘em up!"
As the Honda begins to move in reverse, Tiller yells, "Stop! stop!" Then an expletive, and shots are fired.
It was all over in five seconds.
"He tried to hit me," Tiller can be heard saying.
Adams released a statement Tuesday saying she found no justification for state charges against Tiller. However, a federal investigation into the case continues.
Tiller remained on administrative leave Tuesday and no timetable had been set for a return to active duty, according to a city spokesman.
Tiller violated proper police procedures in running up to Hammond's car rather than staying back behind his own car door while he attempted to make an arrest, but that doesn't constitute a criminal violation, Adams said in a letter to the State Law Enforcement Division, which investigated the shooting.
But Hammond's father said a video of the incident released Tuesday clearly shows that the officer was not in danger of being run over by his son's car as police claim.
The family plans to go forward with a civil lawsuit filed in federal court and hopes that federal authorities who are conducting an independent investigation will bring charges in the case.
“All we can do is keep continuing to try to do something," he said. "But the worst thing about this whole thing is it’s not going to bring our son back, and it's torture on all of us.
"But we’ve got to keep on.”
He also expressed concern that the officer, Tiller, could be back on the street, "and I think that's a danger myself," he said.
Solicitor Adams asked SLED to work with the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy to better train officers how to handle such situations.
Experts with the Criminal Justice Academy and Solicitor Kevin Brackett of York and Union counties agreed with her assessment that no criminal charges were warranted, she said in the letter.
Adams said she met with Hammond's family Tuesday to inform them of the decision. Tiller shot and killed Hammond in an attempted drug bust in the parking lot of Hardee’s on U.S. 123 in Seneca.
"After careful consideration of the facts of the case, a thorough review of the state investigation, and an extensive review of all applicable law, I have determined that no criminal charges should be filed against Lt. Mark Tiller at the state level," Adams said in a statement.
Eric Bland, attorney for the Hammond family, said the video clearly shows that Tiller was not in danger of being run over when he fired the fatal shot and said federal charges of civil rights violations could still be forthcoming.
“We’re going forward on our civil suit at this point,” he confirmed.
“It’s just a sad day to see an unarmed kid who was shot unnecessarily by excessive force where it clearly violated all the police policies,” Bland said. “This was just a traffic stop at the time.”
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Adams, in a letter to SLED, said, "The video viewed at full speed, standing alone, is troublesome. However, when the video and the totality of the investigation is evaluated and the laws of our State are applied, it is clear that Lt. Tiller broke no State laws.
"The evidence from this investigation corroborates and supports Lt. Tiller's belief that he was going to be run over. Therefore, the only conclusion that can be rendered is that deadly force was justified."
Toxicology reports showed that Hammond had drugs in his system at the time, Bland said, but he wouldn’t comment on what type or amount. Adams said in a letter to SLED that Hammond tested positive for cocaine and marijuana, and both drugs were found in the car packaged as if for sale.
In text messages found on Hammond's cell phone, Hammond said he was "in full outlaw mode" and intended to "go out shootin," Adams said in the letter. He also says he had run several police checkpoints in the previous weeks, including one in Clemson on June 23 that was verified by Clemson city police.
"Almost every text message deals with Hammond selling drugs to multiple individuals including marijuana, acid, cocaine and prescription pills," she wrote. "The text messages indicate Hammond was actively evading arrest by flight and evading law enforcement due to his outstanding warrant.
"Just four days prior to his death Hammond refers to himself as a 'criminal' and says he is 'like an animal now,' " Adams wrote. "Hammond also talks about being a member of a gang and even goes so far as to say that police will 'just take me one day.' "
She prefaced those remarks by citing a court case in which a ruling indicated that even if the officer on the scene isn't aware of the state of mind of the suspect, the suspect's state of mind can be taken into account in determining whether the officer's actions are justified.
Courts also can consider whether the officer had to make a split-second decision in determining whether criminal charges are warranted, Adams said. From the time Tiller got out of his car in the Hardee's parking lot where Hammond was parked until the time he shot Hammond, five seconds had elapsed.
"The investigation revealed that Tiller had less than 3 seconds to evaluate the threat against him and decide if it was a deadly force situation once he was outside his vehicle," she wrote to SLED. "The dash cam video clearly shows that Lt. Tiller was forced to make a split-second decision in determining whether or not to use deadly force."
Adams says in the letter that Tori Morton, who was in the car with Hammond during the incident, told an officer on the scene that she believed Hammond was trying to run over the officer and that her later statements to authorities and to attorneys for the Hammond family deviate from the facts seen on the video and aren't credible.
Morton told an officer, "I don't know what's going on, I don't know why he didn't just stop, he tried to run that cop over," according to Adams.
Later, while sitting in the officer's car alone and unaware she was being recorded, she made similar comments, including, "Why didn't he get out of the car like he was supposed to?" Adams' letter says.
Text messages from Hammond's phone also indicated that he and Morton had known each other longer than she had claimed and that "Hammond had a history of supplying Morton with drugs."
Allegations that one of the Seneca police officers on the scene "high-fived" Hammond's body after he had been killed were based on a comment made by Seneca police officer Anthony Moon to an officer with the Spartanburg Department of Public Safety, according to Adams' letter. The investigation concluded that Moon did say he had done that, but the evidence indicated that it never happened, Adams wrote.
Moon subsequently resigned from the Seneca Police Department, and "video evidence from the scene confirms that there was no wrongdoing by any responding Seneca officers," Adams wrote.
Allegations that Seneca police planted cocaine on Hammond after he was shot also weren't substantiated by the video evidence, Adams wrote.
"The video from the scene actually shows the responding officers attempted to give aid to Hammond before EMS arrived and that, in fact, nothing was planted. The Seneca officers did not search Hammond's body," Adams wrote.
However, cocaine was found in Hammond's pants pocket by Oconee Coroner Karl Addis, she said.
Attorneys for the Hammond family asked SLED and the FBI to interview a family that had told them they were at Hardee's and witnessed the whole incident, according to Adams' letter. Interviews and video evidence indicated that they had not been at the restaurant at the time and had only driven by the scene, the letter says.
The investigation also found that a statement made by a former Seneca police officer who said Tiller had told him he would kill someone while in law enforcement was unsubstantiated.The officer's credibility was cast in doubt because of contradictions in his statements regarding the operations of the Seneca Police Department and his subsequent resignation from the Westminster Police Department when he was the subject of an investigation for "conduct unbecoming an officer," Adams wrote.
Adams said she will not be releasing any additional information about the federal investigation. Attorneys for Hammond’s parents asked federal authorities to investigate the shooting death of their son because of what they called “the substantial violations of his civil rights.”
SLED released case files and videos today in response to Freedom of Information requests filed by The Greenville News and other media. The News also sued to have the materials released.
In a letter to SLED outlining her reasons for not charging Tiller, Adams said the incident began when Morton, Hammond's passenger, sent a text message offering to sell cocaine and marijuana, but the text accidentally went to a Highway Patrol officer, who contacted the Seneca Police Department.
Seneca City Administrator Greg Dietterick released the following statement:
"The past three months have been extremely difficult for the residents of Seneca, its city employees and the 45 members of its police force. While the effects of outside agitators to tear apart our community lingers, we are thankful the investigation has come to an end and shows Lt. Tiller was acting in self-defense.
"The night of July 26 was a tragic event for this community and I personally will always grieve for the Hammond family. I would like to thank the hard work of the local and state investigators who handled the cases expertly and professionally. I would like to thank Solicitor Adams, who suffered numerous personal attacks, for her diligence.
"I thank Chief John Covington for his courage and strength during these trying times as he and his family have been repeatedly maligned. I thank our Mayor and City Council for standing with us during this tragedy. It is now time to start healing Seneca."
A statement released by Tiller's attorney, John Mussetto, says, "Lt. Tiller agrees with the outcome of the investigation. As stated from day one, Lt. Tiller acted in self-defense and the decision today supports this position."
News of Adams' decision not to charge Tiller didn’t sit well with a group that has been protesting since soon after the July 26 incident.
Jack Logan of Greenville led a protest at the scene of the shooting in Seneca on Tuesday afternoon.
“He ran and put himself in front of the car,” Logan said of Tiller after watching the video.
Staff writer Romando Dixson and other Greenville News staffers contributed to this report.
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