The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office released statements from the two white Cleveland police officers involved in the 2014 shooting death of African-American child Tamir Rice, who they thought had a gun but was holding only a toy. “Submitting self-serving, unsworn written statements-rather than appearing live before the grand jury so that the officers’ versions of events are subject to vigorous cross examination-shows that these officers know their story will not withstand real scrutiny”, Chandra said in a statement released on Tuesday.
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Prosecutors in recent weeks released a frame-by-frame analysis of the surveillance camera footage from the shooting, along with expert reports that called the shooting justified.
Subodh Chandra, an attorney for the family of Tamir Rice, has blasted the officers’ statement as unfair and inconsistent. “I was trained to keep my eyes on his hands because ‘hands may kill'”. Officers Loehmann and Garmback, meanwhile, are on transitional duty.
“Officer Gamback and I were still yelling ‘show me your hands.’ With his hands pulling the gun out and his elbow coming up, I knew it was a gun and it was coming out…I fired two shots”, wrote Loehmann.
A grand jury will determine if Loehmann will face criminal charges.
The suspect lifted his shirt reached down into his waistband.
Loehman claimed in his statement that he and Garmback repeatedly yelled at Tamir to “show me your hands”.
In his statement, Loehmann described in detail actions that a surveillance video shows took about two seconds.
Loehmann said he and his partner thought Tamir was going to run as they drove up to him, but Tamir turned toward the cruiser. The call also said the man might be a juvenile, but that information wasn’t passed on to the officers.
“I had very little time as I exited the vehicle…I observed the suspect pulling the gun out of the waistband with his elbow coming up”, he wrote. “The threat to my partner and myself was real and active”, Loehmann said.
Loehmann says they were responding to a call for a “male waving a gun and pointing at people” and when they arrived at the playground where Tamir was, they spotted “a male matching the description” sitting in a gazebo.
Garmback, meanwhile, provided a terse recollection that didn’t explicitly say that his partner shot Tamir. It was an airsoft pistol that police say looked like a real gun. Garmback said in his statement that he thought the suspect was “over 18 years old”. “I was fixed on his waistband and hand area”, Loehmann said.
In a separate statement that was also given Monday, Garmback seemed to offer a response to critics who have questioned his decision to pull up mere feet from a person he believed to be armed, instead of stopping the cruiser at a safe distance and taking cover while trying to deescalate the situation. I estimated we were traveling about 10 miles per hour based on weather conditions.
“She had the opportunity to ask the grand jury to consider whether it could possibly be “reasonable” or “justifiable” for officers to speed across the grass when driveways were nearby, rush up to Tamir, and shoot him immediately”, the statement said.
Three experts’ reports released by the prosecutor’s office concluded the shooting was justified.
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“And of course, neither officer explains why they left a 12-year-old boy bleeding and dying on the ground after shooting him”, the Rice family attorneys said.
