Although a spokesman for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty declined to confirm whether the grand jury is hearing the case, according to multiple sources familiar with the case who have spoken with Cleveland.com, Cuyahoga County sheriff’s deputies have been called in to testify, and prosecutors have been presenting evidence.
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We’ve learned witnesses, including police and sheriff detectives, have gone before the grand jury since at least last week.
The 12-year-old boy was shot and killed in late November, 2014 by police outside a recreational center.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty has said he would take the case to the grand jury, but Loomis’ comments revealed that the panel had begun hearing the case.
That criticism reached a new height recently when McGinty made public two expert reports that said the shooting was justified because Loehmann and partner Frank Garmback weren’t told that the gun Tamir was carrying might not be real, something the 911 caller told a dispatcher that day. Officer Timothy Loehmann, who fired the fatal shots, faces charges of murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, negligent homicide and dereliction of duty. The jurors will decide whether to charge the officers with a crime once McGinty’s office is done presenting evidence.
Replica guns have become a menace for police because they are easy to acquire and can quickly be altered to look like the real thing.
Then earlier this month, the prosecutor’s office released findings of independent reviews of the case.
Samaria Rice, the boy’s mother, called for McGinty to step aside and allow a special prosecutor to take over the investigation at a press conference days after the reports were released.
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“For the reasons stated in counsel’s October 16, 2015 letter to the prosecutor, the Rice family continues to lack confidence in the prosecutor’s handling of the grand-jury process”.
