Not In Our Town Billings to host candlelight vigil for Tamir Rice

On the presidential campaign trail, Ohio Gov. John Kasich said protesters in Cleveland, Oh., decrying the decision not to indict a police officer in the death 12-year-old Tamir Rice “need to be heard”.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said it was “indisputable” that the boy was drawing the pistol from his waistband – either to hand the weapon over to police or show them it wasn’t real – when he was gunned down. No arrests were reported.

“R.I.P. Tamir Rice” is written on a block of wood near a memorial for Rice outside the Cudell Recreation Center where he was shot.

About 75 protesters escorted by police gathered at barriers in front of a Cleveland courthouse and then marched around downtown chanting, “Whose streets?” Officers directed traffic around them.

As Eugene Rice, Tamir’s grandfather, an active member of Teamsters Local 52 and a worker in a suburban factory packaging peanuts for commercial airlines, told the People’s World, “Our fight for justice is far from over”. The protest ended at the Horseshoe Casino at 9 p.m.

Talks of protesters in the city was met with a comment from Jackson stating the city welcomes them and wants to protect them. “What it tells us is, something like three-quarters of all Americans harbor an implicit bias favoring whites”, including 88 percent of all whites and nearly half of all blacks. Loehmann shot Rice within seconds of arriving at the park in response to a report of a suspect with a gun. “And there are no answers because the prosecutors have foreclosed the possibility of criminal accountability”.

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

“This brings a restorative feeling”, 28-year-old Brown said.

Both officers insisted that they shouted at Tamir repeatedly to show his hands before Loehmann opened fire from a distance estimated at 4½ to 7 feet. 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. A judge ultimately acquitted the patrolman of manslaughter.

Cleveland’s reputation has suffered because of some well-publicized police shootings, including the killings of two unarmed black people in a 137-shot barrage of police gunfire at the end of a 2012 vehicle chase. However his assistants so vigorously attacked and ridiculed their testimony in the secret hearing that the Rice family appealed to the Department of Justice to investigate McGinty’s handling of the case. Loehmann and his white training partner, Frank Garmback, were responding to a 911 call about a man waving a gun.

“There never has been any justice in these police murders”, he said. However, in the Tamir Rice case, James remained impartial.

City officials have said those who choose to protest will be allowed to do so peacefully.

“In addition to portraying the killing as a result of a tragic misunderstanding, prosecutors have also suggested the officer’s decision to kill Tamir was shaped by the fact that the surrounding neighborhood had a history of violence and that the boy appeared to be older than 12 because he was big for his age”, they conclude.