Tamir had an airsoft gun, which shoots non-lethal plastic pellets (REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk) (From 2nd L to R) Lesley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown, Rev. Al Sharpton, Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, and Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir Rice, lead the national Justice For All march against police violence, in Washington December 13.
Advertisement
Loehman shot Rice to death in November 2014 within seconds arriving at the scene.
The Ohio prosecutor gathering evidence in the death of Tamir Rice by a Cleveland police officer released two reports Saturday that conclude the officer was justified in shooting the 12-year-old.
“It is now obvious that the prosecutor’s office has been on a 12-month quest to avoid providing that accountability”, he said.
“These cases are, by their very nature, different than other matters that come to our office”, McGinty said in a written statement. Both determined that a rookie police officer acted reasonably.
“The officers did not create the violent situation”, Mr Sims wrote in his review.
A retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a Denver prosecutor both found in separate reports that Officer Timothy Loehmann’s decision to shoot the boy was “reasonable” because Rice could be perceived as a threat.
The authors of the newly released reports were given surveillance video of the shooting.
The Rice family and Clevelanders have always said that they want the officers who rushed upon and killed 12-year-old Tamir held accountable.
Subodh Chandra, a lawyer for the Rice family, said the release of the reports shows the prosecutor is avoiding accountability, which is what the family seeks.
“Reasonable jurors could find that conduct unreasonable”, he said, adding that the family believes the prosecutor “is working diligently to ensure that there is no indictment”. He died a day later. They were not told that the caller thought the gun was likely fake and that the suspect was a child. No verbal warning appeared to have been issued before Loehmann fired, according to witnesses, the report indicated.
Video of the incident shows a patrol auto pull up on the snowy grass near a gazebo where Tamir is standing.
The gun was in the waistband of Tamir’s trousers.
Officer Loehmann, she wrote, “had no information to suggest the weapon was anything but a real handgun, and the speed with which the confrontation progressed would not give the officer time to focus on the weapon”.
“His response was a reasonable one”, she writes.
“We are not reaching any conclusions from these reports”, Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said in a statement.
Advertisement
McGinty expects more independent reports to be publicly filed before a grand jury decision is reached. Also that month – in a non-binding review of the case – a Cleveland judge found probable cause for the charges of murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, negligent homicide and dereliction of duty against Loehmann.
