‘Slap in the face’ from feds, says Tamir’s ma
Rips Justice Dept. delay in cop-slay of son in 2014
The mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice — who was gunned down by an Ohio cop in 2014 — on Friday slammed the Justice Department for quietly stalling its investigation into her son’s death.
Tamir’s family only learned this week that the DOJ in 2019 had back-burnered its probe of Tamir’s death — a fact that was never disclosed even though the case was one of several touted as key to the national movement to change police tactics.
“I just think it’s another slap in the face,” Samaria Rice told the Daily News on Friday. “There goes any chance of me getting any type of justice for me and my son. It just doesn’t feel good.”
The Government Accountability Project, which filed a whistleblower complaint in the case, said Thursday the DOJ in 2017 refused to convene a grand jury to subpoena witnesses and evidence as part of the investigation. The group said the move “doomed any chance for justice” in the case.
The request lay fallow in the
DOJ until August 2019, when supervisors denied permission to convene the grand jury, which essentially ended the inquiry without actually conducting a probe, although the agency has not yet publicly said that it won’t charge the officer responsible for
Tamir’s death.
“They had their own specialists from their own administration who recommended this go to a grand jury. Two memos were sent recommending it,” the anguished mom said. “And the higher people sat on it. Some kind of charges should be filed against them for obstruction of justice. That’s not how you conduct business in this country.”
Tamir was playing with a toy gun at a snowy Cleveland park oon Nov. 22, 22014, when ccity cop Timothy LL o e h m a n aand his partner ss c r e e ch e d uup in a ppatrol car, ssummoned bby a 911 call aabout a man wwith a gun.
Rookie officer LL o e h m a n ggave Tamir bbarely two sseconds to react before opening fire, killing the boy.
It was later revealed that crucial information from the initial 911 call about a man with a gun was dropped by a dispatcher. Leohman and his partner Frank Garmback never heard the caller’s caveats that the weapon was “probably fake” and the person holding it was “probably a juvenile.”
The city of Cleveland awarded Samaria Rice $6 million in 2016.
The Justice Department Civil Rights Division opened their investigation in 2015 after a Cleveland grand jury declined to indict the officers. But as was revealed this week, it was silently powered down in 2019.
“It’s very clear that the line prosecutors who were most versed in the evidence at least twice sought to present the case to a grand jury,” said Rice’s lawyer Zoe Salzman.
“The way this was done was very underhanded and done in a deliberate attempt to insulate the officials from political accountability, oversight and transparency.”
A Justice Department spokesman insisted Thursday the case still under review, but Salzman said the DOJ has yet to contact the family.
Samaria Rice said she has recently been involved in get out the vote effort and in a voter guide focused on issues raised by Tamir’s death. “I’m hoping everybody get out and vote and vote this administration out,” she said. “Whoever does become president, we need to hold them accountable.: