guardian | The mother of a 12-year-old Ohio boy fatally shot by police who believed he was carrying a gun said on Monday he was never given a chance to follow officers’ orders.
Samaria Rice said in an interview with the Associated Press offices
in New York that her son, Tamir Rice, was shot before he could comply
with police who pulled up next to him on a Cleveland playground. A
rookie officer fired within 2 seconds.
Tamir had an airsoft gun, which shoots nonlethal plastic pellets.
Rice said she wants the officer charged with murder and she called on
authorities to make sure young officers don’t “ignore the training.”
Police say officers were responding to a call 22 November about
someone possibly carrying a gun. They say Tamir didn’t respond to
commands to raise his hands before officer Timothy Loehmann fired his
weapon. The officers also meant to stop the patrol car farther from
Tamir but the vehicle slid on the grass, the Cleveland police union has
said.
Rice said she found out later that Tamir was handed the fake weapon
by a girl at the playground. She said police put Tamir’s 14-year-old
sister in handcuffs as she rushed to help her mortally wounded brother
that day.
Rice’s attorney, Benjamin Crump, said that the two officers could
have defused the situation – by talking to the boy from a distance
instead of pulling up next to him on the grass and firing.
An internal Cleveland police investigation is underway and the
results will be turned over to the local prosecutor, who will present
them to a grand jury. The fatal encounter was caught on surveillance
video.
