Tamir Rice was a 12-year-old black boy who was shot and killed by a white Cleveland police officer because he was playing with a toy gun.
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Several of these cases have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements between cities and the families of victims.
“There is no price you can put on the loss of a 12-year-old child”, he said.
It is the latest in a string of seven-figure payouts by cities to avoid wrongful death lawsuits, which are brought by the estates of those killed against authorities liable for the death. The settlement reached today (April 20) allows the city to avoid a federal civil rights suit brought by the family. And he says the city must weather the settlement’s $6 million impact.
Officers Loehmann and Garmback took the high-priority call. Loehmann’s lawyer maintained his client is burdened with having to live with the shooting.
The settlement must be approved by a Cuyahoga County Probate Court judge before it is final. His mother, Samaria Rice, and his sister, Tajai Rice, will each receive $250,000.
Tamir died on November 23, 2014, the day after the shooting, and the lawsuit was filed two weeks after his death. The letter written by Deputy Chief Jim Polak of the Independence police further noted: “I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies”. I can’t speak to how hard it must have been for the family of Tamir Rice”, said Mayor Frank Jackson.
He said the shooting “should not have happened” but didn’t elaborate. The shooting raised questions about the wider issue of police brutality toward Blacks in the USA, spurred protests around Cleveland and helped spark the creation of a state standards board to lay out rules about the use of deadly force in law enforcement.
The city will pay the Rice family $3 million this year and $3 million in 2017.
“Something positive must come from this tragic loss”, said Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association.
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Family attorney Subodh Chandra sharply criticized Loomis’ response. The caller reported a man, “probably a juvenile, was pointing a weapon at people that was probably fake”. Rice was shot while playing with a non-lethal airsoft gun in a local park. He’d borrowed it that morning from a friend who warned him to be careful because the gun looked real. When the police arrived, the boy extended his waistband to point out that his plastic-pellet gun missed an orange tip to indicate that it was not an actual rifle.
