Over 100 people gathered in the freezing rain and hail in Washington Square Park last night to protest a Cleveland grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer for fatally shooting 12-year-old Tamir Rice in a park last November.
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McGinty attributed the shooting to “this flawless storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day”, adding that there was no evidence that indicates criminal conduct by police.
In a statement released Monday to the media through a lawyer, Tamir’s family alleged McGinty has “mishandled the grand jury process”, and called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the shooting. The caller cautioned that the gun was “probably fake” and that Tamir was likely very young, but that information was reportedly never given to responding Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback. 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.
A federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the family against the two officers and the city of Cleveland is pending. CNN reports the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association said it was pleased by what it called the grand jury’s “thoughtful decision”. “I saw the weapon in his hands coming out of his waistband and the threat to my partner and myself was real and active”, Loehmann told investigators. “They know that the power of the grand jury to indict is easy – they do it all the time”. They said Jones was killed by accident and extended condolences. McGinty said Monday, Dec. 28, 2015, that a grand jury declined to indict Timothy…
“As the video shows, Officer Loehmann shot my son in less than a second”, Rice continued.
Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH), who represents Cleveland, issued a statement following the decision, saying that McGinty’s “handling of this case, in my opinion, tainted the outcome”.
McGinty insisted that “steps have been taken” to ensure that this “tragic event” does not happen again, including outfitting all Cleveland police officers with body cameras in order to help “improve public confidence and improve performance”. They accused the prosecutor of “abusing and manipulating the grand jury process to orchestrate a vote against indictment”.
Shortly after the announcement that Officer Timothy Loehmann would face no criminal charges, protesters in Cleveland and NY took their outrage to the rainy streets, shutting down main thoroughfares with relatively brief, peaceful marches demanding justice for Rice’s family and a federal intervention into the case.
A spokesman for the US attorney’s office says an independent civil rights investigation is continuing in the Tamir Rice case. His attorney said Tuesday that Garmback knew from experience the area had a history of crime and gang activity.
Now, an administrative hearing will now be held to determine if the officers violated any departmental policies during the shooting of the 12-year-old. The decision comes after a lengthy investigation by the Cuyahoga County sheriff’s office and county prosecutors and a grand jury presentation that began in late October. They cited “unnamed associates” of the 12-year-old who said Tamir was known to pull his toy gun out “like a robber”. “But they made the final decision”.
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The surveillance video shows Loehmann shooting Tamir less than two seconds after he emerged from a police cruiser driven by Garmback that skidded to a stop just a few feet from the boy.
