The full text of McGinty’s statement is here, and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office’s full report of Rice’s shooting appears here. McGinty said Rice was trying to either hand the weapon over to police or show them it wasn’t real, but the officer and his partner had no way of knowing that.
Advertisement
The family of shooting victim Tamir Rice was displeased with Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty before Monday’s announcement that neither of the officers involved in Rice’s death would be indicted.
The family of a 12-year-old black boy shot by police in OH is claiming a prosecutor abused the grand jury process to ensure the two officers responsible wouldn’t be indicted.
There was no immediate comment from Loehmann after the decision.
Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was shot to death last year by Cleveland police and nothing will ever make that right, nothing can ever make that anything less than a tragedy. But on the other hand, I can see why they’re not happy with how things proceeded.
Rice was playing with a toy pellet gun in a park when Officer Timothy Loehmann and his partner rode up and shot him. It was missing its telltale orange tip, CBS News reported. McGinty’s office released the results of the sheriff’s investigation in June, and months later presented the case to a grand jury. Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback were accused of using deadly force when they opened fire on the boy, who was holding a toy gun when he was approached by police.
Tamir was carrying a borrowed airsoft gun that looked like a real gun, but shot nonlethal plastic pellets.
A rookie patrolman fatally shot Tamir within two seconds of a police cruiser driven by another officer skidding to a stop near him. Jackson said the city will begin an internal review to determine whether the officers should be disciplined for their roles in the killing. Cleveland police officials will now conduct an administrative review of the shooting, with disciplinary action still possible if it is determined that any policies or procedures were violated. The testimony of these expert witnesses supported the decisions made by Loehmann and Garmback.
The family had called for the prosecutor to step down from the investigation. “They took his life”, said LeGrier’s mother, Janet Cooksey.
Tamir’s family has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the two officers and the city.
“The emphasis on the appearance of the boy has become one of the points of criticism of McGinty”, says M. L. Schultze, digital editor and reporter for OH public radio station WKSU. After this investigation-which took over a year to unfold-and Prosecutor McGinty’s mishandling of this case, we no longer trust the local criminal-justice system, which we view as corrupt.
“He could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal”, according to the letter written by Deputy Chief Jim Polak of the Independence police. He quit the force before he could be fired. Yesterday’s grand jury decision follows a series of similar non-indictments in the police-related deaths of people of color, including Eric Garner in Staten Island, and Michael Brown in Ferguson. Deputies set up metal barricades outside the Justice Center after McGinty’s news conference on Monday afternoon.
Advertisement
As a cold rain pelted Cleveland on Monday night, a group of protesters walked through the streets, chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, these killer cops have got to go”. But Steve Loomis, the union’s president, said the decision not to indict the officers was no cause for celebration.
