Candlelight vigil held for Tamir Rice in Billings

A coalition of area organizations held a press conference at the NAACP headquarters in Cleveland Wednesday to respond to the decision in the Tamir Rice case. “No racist police!” one of the protest chants went.

Photo compilation: 12-year-old Tamir Rice; a comparison of the Airsoft replica he was carrying the day he was killed with a real 1911 Colt pistol it was modeled after, according to officials. The officers in the Cleveland case are white and Rice was black. The coalition has not yet said who they’ll support for prosecutor.

A grand jury decided Monday against indicting Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, the Cleveland police officers involved in the Rice shooting that took place November 22, 2014.

Loehmann’s attorney said the officer bears a heavy burden, too.

The family of Tamir blasted McGinty in a statement, saying it was “saddened and disappointed… but not surprised” by the grand jury decision.

Prosecutors who recommended bringing no charges against two officers in the shooting of Tamir Rice said they were required to reveal to a grand jury they didn’t think a conviction was possible. “Those forces hovered over the proceedings on Monday when a grand jury declined to indict Officer Timothy Loehmann in the killing and Timothy McGinty”.

“It is time for the community and all of us to start to heal”.

Mayor Frank Jackson said Tuesday that it’s important to reassure the public that the internal review will based on the facts and that the outcome isn’t predetermined.

The 911 caller did tell the dispatcher that the figure with a firearm might be a young adult playing with a toy gun… but he thought the threat was realistic enough to make a 911 call. They said they ordered Rice to drop the weapon before Loehmann fired. Defense attorneys in the case successfully argued the officers’ actions could therefore not be interpreted as being criminal since there was no way of telling whether the boy’s toy gun was not real.

They forget that Loehman had several more seconds to observe Rice’s actions as the squad auto approached Rice; police cars do have windows, after all, and his view of Rice’s actions did not begin the moment the squad vehicle door opened.

But the OH governor argued that protesters need to have their voices heard and said he thought the U.S. Department of Justice’s continued investigation into the death of Tamir Rice was appropriate.

The family also issued a statement accusing the prosecutor of “abusing and manipulating the grand jury process to orchestrate a vote against indictment”.