Cleveland
police to review shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice
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[December 30, 2015]
By Kim Palmer
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Cleveland police
will review from start-to-finish the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir
Rice to determine if the two officers involved or others should face
disciplinary action in the November 2014 incident, officials said on
Tuesday.
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A grand jury on Monday declined to bring criminal charges against
the officers in the death of Rice, who was brandishing a replica gun
in a park before an officer shot him, drawing a protest on Tuesday
afternoon in downtown Cleveland.
"People are very upset about it and I believe legitimately and
rightfully so," Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said of Rice's
shooting and other police-involved incidents around the United
States.
"A 12-year-old lost his life. We take this seriously. We do soul
searching," Jackson told a news conference.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Chicago police officer pleaded not guilty to
murder charges in the shooting of a black teenager that was captured
on video and has led to calls for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to
resign. [L1N14I0WO]
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About 75 protesters escorted by police gathered at barriers in front
of a Cleveland courthouse and then marched around downtown chanting
"Whose streets? Our streets." Officers blocked them from entering a
divided highway and they sat down, blocking a major intersection.
The shooting of Rice was one of several incidents nationwide that
have fueled scrutiny of the use of excessive force by police,
particularly against minorities. The officers in the Cleveland case
are white and Rice was black.
The Cleveland committee will review grand jury proceedings and all
reports in Rice's shooting, officials said.
Officer Timothy Loehmann shot Rice within seconds of reaching the
park in response to reports of a person with a gun. Loehmann was in
a patrol car driven by his partner Frank Garmback. Both have been on
restricted duty since the shooting.
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Rice was holding a replica of a .45-caliber handgun that fires
plastic pellets and is sold with an orange tip on it. The gun Rice
held did not have an orange tip.
Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney Timothy McGinty said the
failure of radio personnel to convey that a caller to the 911
emergency number had said the suspect was probably a juvenile and
the gun may not be real was a substantial factor in the shooting.
Rice's family, which has filed a civil lawsuit in his death, has
asked the U.S. Justice Department to review McGinty's handling of
the grand jury, which they believe was manipulated to exonerate the
officers, attorney Subodh Chandra said.
"She has been cheated twice, first by the loss of her boy and second
by the prosecutor," Chandra said of Rice's mother, Samaria Rice.
(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Writing by David Bailey; Editing by Toni
Reinhold and Dan Grebler)
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