No indictment in Tamir Rice case

I watched the video from start to finish. Total bullshit that this cop wasn't convicted. Supporters of the cop say "He felt threatened. He was doing his job" and blah blah blah. Cops are supposed to be professionals. After hearing that the gun was probably fake (and even if dispatch hadn't relayed that). Driving up to what is obviously a kid in such an aggressive manner and just pulling his weapon out to shoot instantly is poor training and criminal for a professional police officer. There were so many other ways this could have went - none of them resulting in a dead 12 year old kid - if the cop hadn't been so eager to pull his firearm. I can only hope the decision to kill a child haunts the guy to his fucking grave.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/28/us/tamir-rice-shooting/

No indictment in Tamir Rice case, prosecutor says
By Steve Almasy and Ashley Fantz, CNN

Updated 2:11 PM ET, Mon December 28, 2015

(CNN)An Ohio grand jury has decided not to return an indictment in the 2014 police shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, prosecutor Tim McGinty said Monday.

Rice was holding a pellet gun when he was shot. It was "reasonable" to believe that the officer who killed the boy was facing a threat, McGinty said.

The officer was in training outside a Cleveland recreation center in November 2014. The shooting sparked controversy given Tamir's age and the fact that he had a gun that resembled a handgun.

The shooting
Tamir had been playing near the swings of a recreation center near his home when he was shot on November 22. He died a day later.

A witness called 911, reporting there was "a guy with a pistol," adding that the weapon was "probably" fake.

Information that the gun the caller saw was probably not real and that the person holding it appeared to be a juvenile was not conveyed to Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, according to recordings that law enforcement released.

Video of the incident shows a patrol car pull up on the snowy grass near a gazebo where Tamir is standing. Within seconds of arriving on the scene, Loehmann shoots the boy.

The gun was in the waistband of Tamir's pants. Sims writes that in the video, it appears the boy's hands moved toward his waistband, but it is unclear if he reached for the gun.

Kimberly Crawford, a 20-year veteran of the FBI and a former instructor at the agency's academy, writes that when the officers approached Tamir they were responding to a report of a male suspect with a gun he kept pulling from his pants.

"The after-acquired information -- that the individual was 12 years old, and the weapon in question was an 'airsoft gun'-- is not relevant to a constitutional review of Officer Loehmann's actions," she writes in one of the other reports posted Saturday.

She says Loehmann was required to make a threat assessment and a split-second decision on whether to shoot.

"His response was a reasonable one," she writes.

McGinty said his office wasn't using the reports to reach a conclusion and the grand jury will get to consider all the evidence once the investigation into shooting is done.

In June, McGinty released the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office report. Also that month -- in a non-binding review of the case -- a Cleveland judge found probable cause for the charges of murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, negligent homicide and dereliction of duty against Loehmann.
 
I saw the video. Inititally I thought it vindicated the officer, as the kid does have a gun that you couldn't tell from across a room if it was real or not. The fact that he was 12 is tragic, but I know that there are plenty of gang shooters that age.

Then I had the question of why did the cops roll up right on top of him in their car? Was it an aggressive move designed to confront a possible shooter or did they needlessly turn a harmless situation into a life or death one? Presumably from 20 feet away, behind the patrol car, they would have had more time to assess things than three feet away from a guy they thought was armed. But if they played it safe, then the kid could have bolted and escaped them. Tough choice.

The problem for prosecutors is that, once the cops inserted themselves into the situation so closely, the decision to shoot the kid is defensible, at least from a legal standpoint. He had a gun in his waistband and the cop thought he was reaching for it. Was the cop's belief unreasonable?

Why is a 12 year old out in public waving a pellet gun around anyway?

It's a mess. Not as bad as the chicago shootdown, but bad nonetheless.
 
The question of the 12 year old in public waving a pellet gun around goes to bad parenting, but as someone with a young boy <10, I can tell you that if he got a hold of something like that, he would think it would be cool to walk around with it. He's a kid. That's what kids do.

The cop should have pulled up a dozen yards away and used the vehicle for protection, shouting for the kid to drop the gun. This could all have been avoided. Shitty training and a poor psych profile of the cop is no doubt at fault.
 
Unfortunately this falls into the category of you can't prevent everything. There will always be some goofy kid doing something dangerous, and there will always be that cop that acts without putting much thought into it. Parents and the community will be rightfully outraged, and police will be defensive saying you don't know what it's like to make these split second decisions.
The real problem is walking into these communities is damn near like being in a combat zone. The enemy lives among the friendlies and it is, at times, really hard to distinguish between the two.
 
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