Samuel Hammond, Henry Smith & Delano Middleton

Samuel Hammond Jr., 18, Henry Smith, 18, and Delano Middleton, 17, were shot and killed by South Carolina Highway Patrol officers on the campus of South Carolina State College on the night of February 8, 1968, during the third night of student protests against the segregation of a local bowling alley. Officers fired shotguns loaded with buckshot into a crowd of roughly 200 unarmed students; 27 more were wounded, many shot in the back or through the soles of their feet as they fled. Middleton was a local high school student who had come to the campus to walk his mother, a cafeteria worker, home from work. Nine officers were identified and tried on federal charges of using excessive force; all nine were acquitted. The only person convicted in connection with the events of that week was Cleveland Sellers, a civil rights organizer and one of the wounded, who was convicted of inciting a riot and served time in prison; he received a pardon decades later. The FBI declined to reopen the case when asked in 2007. It is considered the first fatal shooting of student protesters on a U.S. college campus, predating the 1970 Kent State shootings.

Orangeburg, SC · Orangeburg County

• 1968: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The victims' identities, ages, and the February 8, 1968 date and circumstances, per multiple contemporaneous and historical accounts.
• Nine South Carolina Highway Patrol officers were identified and tried on federal excessive-force charges; all nine were acquitted.

• No officer was ever convicted in the deaths.
• Which specific officers fired the fatal shots was not conclusively established at trial.

• BlackPast.org — case summary
• Lowcountry Digital History Initiative, College of Charleston — case summary
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs