Seneca announces a defense

Seneca has filed formal legal papers in response to a federal lawsuit by Zachary Hammond’s parents, as personal representatives of his estate.  The lawsuit was filed last month by the Hammond side as an attempt at the federal level to obtain what they have been unable to achieve at the state level—the release of audio and video recordings of July 26 in the parking lot of a By-Pass restaurant.  On behalf of the police department and Chief John Covington, Seneca’s attorney mounts a defense of 24 grounds, including the defense “that the force used in this incident was reasonable and in compliance with all the laws of the United States of American and the State of South Carolina and was no more than was reasonably necessary under the circumstances then and there existing.”  It contends that “Lt. Tiller was privileged in using that amount of force necessary due to the actions of the Plaintiffs’ decedent.”