He added that it was apparent to him that McGinty was being as transparent as he possibly could be, so nobody “could come back at him and say he withheld any evidence”.
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Both attorneys said the officers weren’t available for interviews because of a pending federal lawsuit filed by Tamir’s family against them and the city.
Peaceful protests were held in Cleveland and in NY after the decision was announced.
Forty percent of people killed by police in the country’s 60 biggest police departments were black, while the African-American population in those jurisdictions was 20 percent, according to activists that run the Mapping Police Violence project.
Tamir was holding a replica of a.45-calibre handgun that fires plastic pellets and is sold with an orange tip on it. The gun Tamir held did not have an orange tip. Adrine says he never heard from the prosecutor’s office after his ruling and has no idea if his ruling was presented to the grand jury.
In detailing the decision not to bring charges, McGinty said police radio personnel contributed to the tragedy by failing to pass along the “all-important fact” that the 911 caller said the gunman was probably a youngster and the gun probably wasn’t real.
Prosecutors also took pains to show the similarities between Rice’s fake weapon and an an actual gun.
“There have been lessons learned already”.
Among other things, the Cleveland police department is putting dashboard cameras in every vehicle and equipping officers with bodycams.
Attorney Terry Gilbert represented the family of one of the victims and earlier this year won a $5.5 million verdict against the city over the killing of a man by an off-duty Cleveland officer. It was prompted in large part by the killing of a couple in a 137-shot barrage of police gunfire after a high-speed chase.
“It has nothing to do about the individual, whether rightness or wrongness of the police, or the child, or the family”, he said, pausing often as he searched for the next word to utter.
But Tamir, who was shot to death by a white police officer that day, where the police have historically behaved as an occupying force that shoots first and asks questions later. Loehmann, he argued, had reason to believe that he was in danger when Tamir supposedly reached for the pellet gun that he was playing with. If a prosecutor does not want someone indicted, it will be very hard to see a different outcome.
Loehmann has said he ordered Tamir to show them his hands.
Police stormed the park, where Rice was on a swing, and then-rookie patrolman Timothy Loehmann shot dead the young boy.
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The day ended with impassioned calls for calm; that Cleveland and OH residents be respectful and mindful of the process and the inevitable march toward justice.
