Prosecutors defend urging no charges in Tamir Rice shooting

Organized by the group Mass. Action Against Police Brutality, the protest was a reaction to a Cleveland’s grand jury’s decision Monday not to indict the officer who shot Rice on November 22. Loehmann and his training partner, Frank Garmback, were responding to a 911 call about a man waving a gun.

It was not until after the shooting, with the gun on the ground, that police learned that the boy, Tamir Rice, was playing with a replica firearm that shoots nonlethal plastic pellets, the lawyers said on Tuesday.

In explaining the decision, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said it was “indisputable” that the boy was drawing the pistol from his waistband when he was gunned down.

TAMIR Rice was just 12 when he was shot down by police in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams answers questions as mayor Frank Jackson watches during a news conference in Cleveland, Monday, Dec. 28, 2015. And neither will the other officer who was with him in a controversial shooting that was captured on video.

Both attorneys said the officers weren’t available for interviews because of a pending federal lawsuit filed by Tamir’s family against them and the city. “And there are no answers because the prosecutors have foreclosed the possibility of criminal accountability”.

Tamir’s family condemned the decision but echoed the prosecutor in urging those disappointed to express themselves “peacefully and democratically”.

Not In Our Town said Tuesday’s gathering at the Yellowstone County Courthouse lawn is not a protest, but rather a sign of support for the victim and his family.

The release of transcripts from the grand jury. Clearly when you lose a 12-year-old, I mean what more can you say about how tragic it is?

“It’s a classic case of police officers making unfounded assumptions coming in guns blazing before clarifying what’s really going on”, protester Thurman Wenzl said. As a growing number of white officers get cleared of wrongdoing in a cases of police using lethal force against African-Americans, Welbeck and some other black parents noted the explanations offered by Cleveland officials for police conduct that killed Rice find their roots in black male stereotypes formed during slavery in the USA, perpetuating irrational fears among non-blacks.

Those against the killing of Rice stood outside the hearing and criticised Mr McGinty’s decision not to indict the police officers, AP reported.

“In a time in which a nonindictment for two police officers who have killed an unarmed black child is business as usual, we mourn for Tamir, and for all of the black people who have been killed by the police without justice”.

“She doesn’t know what she can do”, Mr Chandra told the Associated Press.

If we don’t speak up now for those like Tamir Rice, we may find that there is no one there to speak for us when our time comes.

While the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cleveland has said it will review the circumstances of the shooting, the legal hurdles to prosecuting a civil rights case are considered especially high.