Tamir Rice shooting was ‘reasonable,’ two experts conclude

In May, a judge acquitted Michael Brelo on voluntary manslaughter charges in the November 2012 shooting of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams after Russell’s beat-up auto backfired outside police headquarters, prompting a high-speed chase with officers who mistook the sound for gunfire.

The Rice family and Clevelanders have always said that they want the officers who rushed upon and killed 12-year-old Tamir held accountable.

(CNN)The police shooting death of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy with a pellet gun was reasonable, two experts say in reports prepared for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor. But one need look no further than McGinty’s bobbling of the Roger Jones case – an instance wherein a Cleveland police officer shot and killed a man named Kenny Smith downtown – to find, at the very least, a “suggestion” of untoward investigative clout. Though the shooting was ruled as “objectively reasonable”, according to reports written by S. Lamar Sims, the senior chief deputy district attorney in Denver, members of the community believe the officers involved should be criminally charged.

Protesters block cars on the freeway during a protest over the police shooting of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, November 25, 2014. Unquestionably, the actions of Rice could reasonably be perceived as a serious threat to Officer Loehmann.

On the subject of the gun, Sims asked, “Could a reasonable police officer believed Rice’s gun was a real firearm?” Inconsistency in reasonable and unreasonable use of force determination fosters anger and agitation, not only among the public, but also within the police force, he added.

After he took off running, Scott pivoted, the lawyer said, at which time the officer figured “the logic is that was going for a weapon.”

His death was ruled a homicide.

Activists argued Sunday that that the reports showed bias toward police, citing that the reports were authored by a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a prosecutor.

Tamir Rice was 12 years old at the time of his death, and was reportedly playing with a toy gun in the park, according to Mother Jones. At the time, Rice was reportedly armed with a handgun, and Officer Loehmann was without cover.

A third report released by the prosecutor’s office is a technical reconstruction of conditions at the Cudell Recreation Center, the site of the shooting, on the day Tamir was shot.

“A reasonable officer may either remove his firearm from his holster or place his hand on the holstered gun”, Sims found.

While there is no universal police standard for what is deemed reasonable conduct when use-of-force cases are justified, in those instances law enforcement leaders should inform the public of their policies governing lethal force, a few police advocacy groups and forensic experts say. “But they will never get the chance, because the prosecutor is working diligently to ensure that there is no indictment and no accountability”.

“What he should be doing, as in any other grand jury, he should be looking to answer a simple question: ‘Is there probable cause that a crime has occurred?’ That’s it,” Rice family attorney Walter Madison said on Monday.

“We are not reaching any conclusions from these reports”. McGinty said his office had commissioned more reports, which will be released after they are finished.