08-13-2015, 01:39 PM
(08-13-2015, 01:25 PM)Duchess Wrote: If he was shot through the driver's side window, wouldn't that put the officer off to the side of the car?
It's hard for me to envision how this shooting went down, in either the police's version of events or the family's version of events (based on the independent coroner's report).
Like you, I question how the officer could have been in danger of being run over if he was beside the vehicle and shot through the driver's side window, as the police contend. I also question how Hammond could have been shot from behind (as the family contends) if the officer shot through the driver's side window.
Here's what the family attorney released to the media after the independent coroner's report was completed.
The family immediately directed that a second autopsy be done. The attached autopsy report was done by independent pathologists James Fulcher, M.D. and Michael Ward, M.D. on Friday July 30, 2015. These two physicians are well respected pathologists with the Greenville South Carolina Hospital System. Their findings are telling.
They directly contradict the narrative that Chief Covington has tried to shape in this matter. It was deceptive to state that Zachary was shot in the “chest and shoulder”. It did not give it proper context. It implied that the officer shot Zachary from the front. He did not. The shots were clearly fired from the side to the rear of the vehicle through driver’s open window at close range. Here are some of the inescapable conclusions that we now know from the past week and the attached autopsy report.
Here is the clear import of this report:
1. Clearly this officer was not in any danger at the time he fired the two shots into the car of being hit by the car.
2. Any perceived danger that this officer may have had of being hit by the car (which we deem as not being reasonable) traveling forward or towards him was no longer present.
3. There was no gun. This officer was not being shot at. The national gun standards (New York and Albuquerque) provide that an officer cannot shoot into a moving vehicle unless someone’s life is in danger in the automobile, the driver or one of the inhabitants of the car is shooting out at the officers or others, etc. There was no such danger here. There was no warrant for anyone’s arrest, certainly not Zachary’s. There was no amber alert. No kidnapping and no suspected murder going to take place.
4. One of two things happened, the officer negligently thought there was a weapon in the car and there was not or he was angry at Zachary for not following his instructions or that Zachary was trying to flee so he shot him.
5. The officer did not witness anything illegal, no drug transaction took place.
6. The shots show that the officer first shot Zachary in the posterior left shoulder (back of the shoulder) and in the posterior/side chest. Not in the shoulder and the chest as Chief Covington has repeated to the media over the last week.
Read more: http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/2971476...z3iiXuZtBD