Mother of Tamir Rice calling for special prosecutor

Rice’s mother and her attorneys will make their case for the independent investigator today at the Justice Center, claiming the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office is leaning toward clearing the officers involved the boy’s death previous year.

One of her attorneys, New York-based John Abady, reiterated accusations made in a letter he released Friday morning that McGinty searched for “so-called experts” who actually are biased in favor of law enforcement.

Rice family attorney Subodh Chandra said he wants to know whether McGinty’s office, as is normal practice, will recommend to the grand jurors before their vote whether charges should be filed against the officers.

“We are not reaching any conclusions from these reports”, Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said in a statement.

Samaria Rice, along with her attorney, are set to hold a press conference at noon Friday to discuss “the prosecutor’s behavior, the taint placed upon the process, and the diminished prospect of obtaining criminal justice for Tamir”, her attorney’s said in a press release Thursday.

“It is now obvious that the prosecutor’s office has been on a 12-month quest to avoid providing that accountability”, he said. Chandra said the Rice family was not given a chance to see a copy of the report in advance. He also questioned the timing of the release, at 8 p.m. Saturday on the Columbus Day holiday weekend. “Who will speak for Tamir before the grand jury? Not the prosecutor, apparently”.

A surveillance video shows a police cruiser driven by Garmback skidding to a stop near Tamir and then Loehmann shooting the boy within two seconds. Rice, an African-American child was playing with an air gun at a city park in Cleveland when police got a call from someone saying they saw him with a gun and were unsure if it was real or fake. “What should a reasonable police officer have known at the time when he or she took the steps that led to the use of physical force or deadly physical force?”

Both experts concluded that Loehmann acted reasonably.

Kimberly Crawford, a 20-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a former instructor at the agency’s academy, writes that when the officers approached Tamir they were responding to a report of a male suspect with a gun he kept pulling from his trousers. “However, what is clear from the facts and needs no inference, is that her decisions created a very risky situation-not just to herself and to the officers, but also to her friends who were in the auto with her”.

Almost one year after the death of Tamir Rice, his mother, Samaria, and her lawyers are calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed to the case.

When they encountered Rice, the officers reported that Rice reached for his waistband, that is, “in the directions of a “high risk area”-an area where a weapon may be concealed-such as inside a jacket, towards the waistband of trousers or under the seat of a auto, well-trained officers will immediately identify this as a serious threat”.

The pellet gun Tamir was holding shoots non-lethal plastic projectiles but its orange markings had been removed.

The case is among several that have become part of a national debate about how police treat minorities.

Prosecutor McGinty released expert reports Saturday, October 10, that stated the officers actions were reasonable.

“The charge from Tim [McGinty] to prosecutors working on the case was to get the best people in the field”, Frolik said. That agreement was in the works before Tamir was killed.