Federal investigation of Tamir Rice’s police shooting death remains open
The Justice CLEVELAND — Department’s refusal, announced Tuesday, to bring criminal charges against the New York City police officer involved in the death of Eric Garner in what became known as the “I can’t breathe” case is a reminder that federal prosecutors haven’t closed the case for the Cleveland officers involved in the shooting death of 12-yearold Tamir Rice.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cleveland said in a Dec. 28, 2015, statement that the Justice Department’s civil rights division was monitoring an investigation by local authorities into officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback.
It also said that the office, the Washington-based civil rights division and the FBI would “continue our independent review of this matter, assess all available materials and determine what actions are appropriate, given the strict burdens and requirements imposed by applicable federal civil rights laws.”
More than three-and-ahalf years after that statement, the Justice Department hasn’t said what became of that review.
Subodh Chandra, an attorney for Tamir’s family, said the family has received no official word that the federal inquiry is closed.
Former federal prosecutors who worked in the civil rights division said a probe into a single incident should usually not last years.
Chiraag Bains, who worked as the senior counsel to the assistant attorney general in the division under President Barack Obama, said family and other loved ones of people killed by police, as well as the officers themselves, deserve closure in a reasonable period of time.
“More broadly, around the country, people want answers, and they’re entitled to them,” Bains said.
Tamir’s mother Samaria Rice did not respond to phone calls, and a spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined comment.
Loehmann shot Tamir on Nov. 22, 2014, as the boy was playing with an airsoft pellet gun outside the Cudell Recreation Center on the city’s West Side.
The officers were the first to respond to a report of a “guy” pointing a gun at people outside the recreation center. Loehmann shot the boy within seconds of arriving.
Loehmann later said he feared for his life and that he thought Tamir was reaching for the gun tucked in his waistband that was later revealed to be an airsoft pellet gun with the orange safety tip removed.
The city later paid $6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Tamir’s family.
A Cuyahoga County grand jury elected not to bring criminal charges against either officer in December 2015.
Lawyers for Samaria Rice, her daughter and the administrator of Tamir’s estate had asked the Justice Department to look into the boy’s death, as well as how thenCuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty handled the case in front of a grand jury.
They said the strategy undertaken by McGinty’s prosecutors contained a series of “anomalies and biased practices,” accused prosecutors of sabotaging the testimony of experts hired by the Rice family and took issue with how Loehmann and Garmback were allowed to read prepared statements to the jury without being questioned.