Lawyers for Tamir Rice’s Family Release Outside Reports Criticizing Shooting - NYT

[WillyT]

Lawyers for Tamir Rice’s Family Release Outside Reports Criticizing Shooting
By MITCH SMITH - NYT
NOV. 29, 2015


A memorial to Tamir Rice that was assembled in a Cleveland park last year after Tamir was fatally shot by a police officer. Credit Ty Wright for The New York Times

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CHICAGO — Lawyers for the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy fatally shot last year by the Cleveland police, have presented Ohio prosecutors with two outside reports that call an officer’s decision to shoot the boy “unreasonable.”

The reports, made public on Saturday night, are at odds with three previous investigations commissioned by the prosecutor’s office that labeled the shooting as tragic but reasonable. Grand jurors are expected to consider all those reports in deciding whether police officers should face criminal charges.

Since Officer Tim Loehmann shot Tamir outside a recreation center on Nov. 22, 2014, the case has become a focal point in the national movement protesting the deaths of black people at the hands of the police.

In the reports provided by the Rice family’s lawyers, two former high-ranking officials at California law enforcement agencies criticized Officer Loehmann’s decision to fire his weapon and said the loss of life was avoidable.

“The officers engaged in reckless tactical decision making, they unreasonably placed themselves in harm’s way, and Officer Loehmann’s use of deadly force was excessive, objectively unreasonable and inconsistent with generally accepted police practices,” wrote Jeffrey J. Noble, a former deputy police chief in Irvine, Calif., in his report.

Mr. Noble’s report, as well as one written by Roger A. Clark, a former lieutenant in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, reached a conclusion opposite of those previously released by prosecutors. The earlier reports found that Officer Loehmann had reasonably feared for his life and that the split-second decision to shoot Tamir could be justified under the circumstances. Tamir had been carrying a replica gun given to him by a friend.

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More: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/us/lawyers-for-tamir-rices-family-release-outside-reports-criticizing-shooting.html?smid=re-share&_r=0

[WillyT]

1. For Tamir...

[GGJohn]

2. +1000.

for Tamir and his family.