U.S. white cop faces no charges for fatal shooting of black teen

On Monday, almost 400 days after Cleveland first saw grainy surveillance camera footage of a police officer fatally shooting 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty announced that a grand jury opted not to file criminal charges in the case.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty blamed a lack of communication as a significant contributor to the death but found no evidence of criminal conduct by police.

About two dozen protesters gathered Monday in downtown Cleveland and at the Cudell Recreation Center, the westside park where Rice was killed.

The replica handgun taken from 12-year-old Tamir Rice is displayed after a November 2014 news conference in Cleveland.

Frank Garmback, the training officer who drove the cruiser that day, and Timothy Loehmann, the officer who shot Tamir, might have acted differently if they’d been given that information, said Michael Maloney, Garmback’s attorney.

At the time, Tamir had been playing with a replica pellet gun with the orange safety tip removed.

— Dispatchers failed to relay to officers that the person scaring people at the recreation center likely was a juvenile with a toy gun.

Twelve-year-old Tamir stood five-foot-seven, weighed 175 pounds and wore a men’s XL jacket.

“But he says there’s no way the officers could have known that”.

“While there is absolutely no upside to this issue”, he said in a statement, “there are lessons that should and will be learned by all”.

An independent review of the case to “determine what actions are appropriate, given the strict burdens and requirements imposed by applicable federal civil rights laws” will be conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio. The settlement was prompted in part by a November 2012 high-speed vehicle chase that ended with the killing of a couple in a 137-shot barrage of police gunfire.

In fact, victim’s family has claimed that they might have been “disappointed” by the outcome but they were not “surprised”.

Chandra wrote that McGinty had been “abusing and manipulating” the grand jury toward no indictments.

The family has renewed its request for the United States Department of Justice to step in and conduct “a real investigation”.

The family had called for the prosecutor to step down from the investigation.

“A short time ago we informed Tamir’s mother of the grand jury’s decision”, he said.

The shooting was one of several that have fuelled scrutiny of police use of deadly force, particularly against minorities.

The attorneys added that McGinty authorized the police officers to read prepared declarations to the grand jury even when they did not answer any questions on cross-examination.

Tamir’s family has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the two officers and the city.

McGinty called Rice’s death “an absolute tragedy, but it was not, by the law that binds us, a crime”.

Prosecutors say there’s no way they could have known that.

The officers said earlier this month that Rice appeared much older and reached for the toy gun that was tucked in his waistband before Loehmann shot at him.

McGinty says a “perfect storm of human error” led to Tamir’s death.

Their numbers had dropped to about 40 people as they marched along Cleveland streets chanting. He quit that department before he could be fired. “Therefore, they must react quickly to any threat”. So far, there have been just a handful of peaceful protests around the city.

“Police are mostly criticized for not responding”, Hilow said. The whole incident was captured on video and sparked outrage across the US.