This file photo from Dec. 8, 2014, shows Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer, as she speaks during a news conference in Cleveland. Leonard Warner, right, Tamir’s father, listens. A decision on whether to charge two white officers in the death of Tamir Rice, one of the higher-profile cases of black deaths at the hands of officers that have roiled cities nationwide, could come any day. The grand jury making the decision has been meeting since mid-October. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)
CLEVELAND (AP) — A grand jury declined to indict a White rookie police officer in the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a Black youngster who was shot to death while carrying what turned out to be a pellet gun, a prosecutor said Monday.
Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said it was “indisputable” that the boy was drawing the weapon from his waistband when he was gunned down — either to hand it over to police or to show them that it wasn’t a real firearm. But McGinty said there was no way for the officers on the scene to know that.
He called it “a perfect storm of human error” but said no crime was committed.
Tamir was gunned down by patrolman Timothy Loehmann within two seconds of his police cruiser skidding to a stop near the boy outside a city recreation center in November 2014. Loehmann and his training partner, Frank Garmback, had responded to a 911 call about a man waving a gun.
Tamir was carrying a borrowed airsoft gun that looked like a real gun but shot nonlethal plastic pellets. It was missing its telltale orange tip.
A grainy video of the shooting captured by a surveillance camera provoked outrage nationally, and together with other killings of black people by police in places such as Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, it helped fuel the Black Lives Matter movement.
McGinty urged those who disagree with the grand jury decision to react peacefully, and said: “It is time for the community and all of us to start to heal.”
This combination of still images taken from a surveillance video and released Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015, by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, shows Cleveland police officers arriving at Cudell Park on a report of a man with a gun. Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann, Nov. 22, 2014, after he reportedly pulled a replica gun at the city park. The enhancement by a California video expert will be presented to a grand jury that will decide if then-rookie patrolman Loehmann or his training officer should be charged criminally for Loehmann killing Rice. (Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office via AP)
The grand jury had been hearing evidence and testimony since mid-October.
McGinty said Loehmann was justified in firing: “He had reason to fear for his life.”
The prosecutor also 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 juvenile and the gun probably wasn’t real.
“There have been lessons learned already. It should never happen again, and the city has taken steps so it doesn’t,” McGinty said. Among other things, the Cleveland police department is putting dashboard cameras in every car and equipping officers with bodycams.
Also, the Cleveland police department reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department earlier this year to overhaul the way it uses force and deals with the public. 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.
McGinty said it was a “tough conversation” with Tamir’s mother when she was told there would be no charges. “She was broken up, and it was very hard,” the prosecutor said.