“It is unheard of and highly improper for a prosecutor to hire “experts” to try to exonerate the targets of a grand jury investigation”, the Rice family statement reads.
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The officers were “prepared to face a possible active shooter in a neighborhood with a history of violence”, McGinty said.
Social media is lifting up Samaria Rice after a grand jury’s decision not to indict officers involved in the shooting death of her 12-year-old son Tamir. Those errors “were substantial contributing factors to the tragic outcome”, McGinty said.
Mr McGinty said the death was a “tragedy” but not a crime. “In a time in which a non-indictment for two police officers who have killed an unarmed black child is business as usual, we mourn for Tamir, and for all of the black people who have been killed by the police without justice”.
Meyer said Monday that Tamir was seen in surveillance footage repeatedly drawing the gun from his waistband and putting it back on the morning before officers arrived.
Cleveland – a city of 390,000 that is more than 50 percent African-American – pledged in May to overhaul its police force and aspire to “bias-free” law enforcement, under an agreement with the Justice Department.
An Ohio grand jury decided on Monday not to indict Loehmann or Garmback on any charges of criminal misconduct.
One protester from Cleveland says she came downtown to show support for Tamir’s mother and because she has young children she worries about.
“We all lose, however, if we give in to anger and frustration and let it divide us”, he said.
Tamir’s family says the case was mishandled, and prosecutors acted more like the police officers’ defense attorneys.
The announcement prompted activists and supporters of Tamir’s family to reiterate their criticism of the way McGinty had handled the investigation of the case.
Next to the gazebo in the Cudell neighborhood where Tamir Rice was shot, a few dozen marchers including Kevin Latimer chanted in the cold drizzle on their way to the Justice Center downtown.
According to the report, the orange tip that would normally be included on a replica to indicate that the gun was fake had been removed, along with the laser sight. Now, his family is accusing prosecutors of deliberately sabotaging the case.
The man who called 911 told the call-taker that a “guy” was pulling a gun out of his waistband and was pointing it at people outside a city recreation center.
Prosecutors said in a report released Monday that the gun Tamir was carrying – at the top and right – was “functionally identical” to the real one pictured at the bottom left.
McGinty said enhanced video evidence showed that Rice was reaching for the replica gun, which shoots plastic pellets, when a police squad vehicle responding to a 911 call of a man waving a gun rolled up next to him.
Within seconds, Officer Timothy Loehmann exited the auto and shot him.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said today he recommended that no charges be filed against the officers. Tamir was holding a pellet gun when he was killed. In circumstances like this, when police brutality has become a plight in the United States, the jury’s decision wasn’t entirely unexpected. “It should never happen again, and the city has taken steps so it doesn’t”. The caller said the person could be a kid playing with a toy, but the dispatcher didn’t relay that possibility to the officers.
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(AP Photo/Phil Long). Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams answers questions as mayor Frank Jackson watches during a news conference in Cleveland, Monday, Dec. 28, 2015.
