Almost two weeks ago South Carolina cops shot and killed Zachary Hammond, a 19-year-old unarmed white man, in a drug bust. His family and lawyer are dismayed that there isn't a national outcry:
“It’s 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,” Bland told The Washington Post this week. “The hypocrisy that has been shown toward this is really disconcerting.”
It's not hypocrisy because the situations isn't the same: Hammond was not "unarmed" -- he was driving a car -- and most importantly, there's no video of the shooting.
In the Sandra Bland case a cop forced Bland to change lanes, then pulled her over and ticketed for not signalling the lane change, then arrested her for not putting her cigarette out in order to receive the ticket. Then she was thrown in jail for three days and committed suicide.
In the Samuel DuBose case the shooting officer's own body cam recorded an assassination. In the Walter Scott shooting a passerby used his cell phone to record the cop murdering a fleeing man. In the Michael Brown case there was no video, but the cop was in a car and Brown was just walking down the street.
In Hammond's case, the shooting officer is claiming that Hammond was trying to run over him with a car. This is what the officer claimed in the DuBose case, but the video showed he was lying. (There are also rumors that DuBose had marijuana in the car.)
Getting run over by a car is a serious concern for cops at traffic stops. Two years ago police in Des Moines shot and killed Tyler Comstock, an "unarmed" white 19-year-old man who had taken his father's truck after an argument over cigarettes. The elder Comstock reported it stolen; when police caught up with Tyler he led them on a wild car chase through city streets, endangering many other drivers and pedestrians, finally pulling into a park, where he tried to ram cop cars. The police finally shot and killed him.
Did they really need to kill Comstock once his car was stopped in the park? Hard to say. But the episode was caught on video, and it was clear that the kid was totally out of control, trying to kill the cops. Hence, no outrage.
Last weekend Officer Sean Bolton, a cop in Memphis, was killed during a traffic stop for drugs:
"Officer Bolton apparently interrupted some sort of drug transaction," Armstrong said. "A digital scale and a small baggie of marijuana ... were located inside of the vehicle."
The violence was senseless given how mundane the stop was, Armstrong said.
"We're talking about less than 2 grams of marijuana. You're talking about a misdemeanor citation," he said. "We probably would not have even transported for that."
I suspect that the cop in Zach Hammond's death used excessive force. I suspect it was a bad shoot, that the cop was angry because the murdered kid was fleeing (the Guardian reports that Hammond was shot in the side, which means the car wasn't bearing down on the cop). I suspect that the department are helping Hammond's killer cover up a bad shoot by refusing to name him and release video of the killing. But I can't know these things without that video.
Our system gives cops the benefit of the doubt to use deadly force to protect themselves and others. That's the deal society makes with cops to make it possible to put their lives on the line every day.
This situation might seem hopeless, but there is something that we can do about these senseless deaths at traffic stops. And it's not just putting body cams on every cop.
Both Bolton's and Hammond's -- and perhaps DuBose's -- deaths were ultimately caused by drug laws. I personally think smoking weed is stupid and useless. But it's clearly no worse than drinking whiskey.
The easiest thing we could do to make cops and the public safer during traffic stops would be to decriminalize drug use. Drivers would be a lot less likely to flee or fight if drugs are legal.
That will make cops a lot less likely to stop random cars for minor infractions -- it's usually just an excuse to check for drugs, except in cities like Ferguson that balance their budgets by making cops shake down motorists for trivial offenses.
It would also prevent a lot of gang warfare and put South and Central American drug cartels out of business.
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