Coalition makes several demands in response to Tamir Rice decision

The shooting in Cleveland came just two days before a grand jury in Missouri declined to indict a white police officer in Ferguson who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old.

In a statement read to the grand jury and released by prosecutors, Loehmann said he yelled for Rice to show his hands and saw him pull a gun from his waistband before firing.

On Tuesday, around 50 protesters marched in downtown Cleveland, chanting, “Justice for Tamir!”

They got support from City Council member Jeffrey Johnson Tuesday, who announced on Twitter that he would ask the council to seek local charges of negligent homicide the coming day, NBC News reported.

The mayor, along with the police chief, said that the city is prepared for protests, acknowledging them as part of the healing process, NBC notes.

In addition to the potential legal and financial consequences is the human cost.

“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.

“While the grand jury and the prosecutor have spoken, there remains a multitude of fundamental, unanswered questions”.

The attorney for Timothy Loehmann, the officer who shot Tamir, says the officers’ actions were meant to keep the community safe.

“The circumstances in which this 12-year-old boy was killed in two seconds doesn’t even warrant a trial”. How long do officers typically have to make the life-or-decision decision to employ deadly force? “That memory will never go away”. We can read carefully the White House commission’s report on policing in the twenty-first century and promote independent investigations and independent prosecutors in officer-involved shootings. The Rice family has a “good case”, Gilbert said.

“We all believe that not only has Mr. McGinty brought ridicule and embarrassment to our community, he has made intemperate remarks, disparaged the families of victims and has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars and man-hours to deny justice in police involved shootings”, the coalition of Cleveland activists said in a statement today. Rice’s decision to step towards the officers and draw the gun was more consistent with the action of a criminal attempting to kill responding officers than that of a child unsure of why police had suddenly arrived. A judge ultimately acquitted the patrolman of manslaughter. “The Tamir Rice case shows how prosecutors twist grand juries to protect police”.

Police radio personnel gave officers a description of the suspect’s clothing but did not convey that a 911 caller had said the suspect was probably a juvenile and the gun may not be real.