Vol. 80/No. 8      February 29, 2016

 

Outcry halts bill Cleveland sent
to family of Tamir Rice

 
Cleveland authorities announced Feb. 10 they were billing the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice $500 in “dying expenses” for ambulance costs after a city cop killed him 15 months ago. After widespread public outcry, they cancelled the order the next day.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson apologized to the family, for the second time. He did so a year ago after city lawyers asserted in court papers that the African-American youth’s death was his own fault.

Rice had been playing with a toy pellet gun in a city park Nov. 22, 2014, when he was shot by officer Timothy Loehmann less than two seconds after the cop and his partner, Frank Garmback, arrived on the scene. Rice died in the hospital the next day. Police didn’t provide him with medical care.

When his family heard the youth had been shot, they rushed to the park. “As I was trying to get through to my son, the police told me to calm down or they would put me in the back of a police car,” Samaria Rice told reporters.

She complied, but when Rice’s 14-year-old sister tried to help him as he lay on the ground, cops tackled and slapped her in handcuffs.

After 13 months of “investigations,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty recommended a grand jury not file charges against Loehmann or Garmback. The jurors complied.

In a Dec. 28 statement McGinty described the killing as a “perfect storm of human error” where Loehmann “had reason to fear for his life.”

McGinty “deliberately sabotaged the case,” Rice’s mother told the press.

“Prosecutor McGinty hired so-called expert witnesses to try to exonerate the officers,” said Earl Ward, who filed a civil case against the city on behalf of Rice’s family. “It is unheard of, and highly improper, for a prosecutor to hire ‘experts’ to try to exonerate the targets of a grand jury investigation. These are the sort of ‘experts’ we would expect the officer’s criminal defense attorney to hire — not the prosecutor.”

In response to the lawsuit, city officials said that Rice is to blame for getting killed because he failed “to exercise due care to avoid injury.”

After the cops were let off, the U.S. Department of Justice said it would “review” the Rice family’s request for a federal investigation.
 
 
Related articles:
NY cop convicted for killing Akai Gurley in Brooklyn
 
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home