General News Same Outcome, Different Place. No Indictment in Tamir Rice Killing

BryanM · Dec 29, 2015

CNN said:

Prosecutors say the police officer who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice outside a Cleveland recreation center last year won't face criminal charges. Neither will the other officer who was with him.

An Ohio grand jury decided not to indict Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, prosecutor Tim McGinty said Monday.

"Given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and communications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police," McGinty said.

Loehmann, an officer-in-training, shot 12-year-old Tamir on November 22, 2014. Garmback was training him.

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In a statement released Monday evening, Tamir's family accused the prosecutor's office of mishandling the case.

"Prosecutor McGinty deliberately sabotaged the case, never advocating for my son, and acting instead like the police officers' defense attorney," the statement said. "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. In our view, this process demonstrates that race is still an extremely troubling and serious problem in our country and the criminal-justice system."

In an earlier statement, the family said it was grateful for community support, calling for those upset with how the case was handled to respond "peacefully and democratically."

"We renew our request that the Department of Justice step in to conduct a real investigation into this tragic shooting of a 12-year-old child," the family said.

The prosecutor hasn't responded to the family's accusations. On Monday, he repeatedly told reporters that no crime was committed by police and said he'd recommended the officers shouldn't be indicted.
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Full story here: No indictment in Tamir Rice case - CNN.com

Out of all of the cases that have had to do with racial profiling by police and police brutality, I almost expected this one to go to trial, or at least see the firing or other reprimand of these officers. This case was an absolute slap in the face to the notion of justice. Not only did they completely approach the situation in the wrong way, they didn't even give the child 2 seconds to explain himself or put the TOY gun down before they shot him. I'm still fuming over this case, but I can't say that I'm surprised either. Local prosecutors looking out for cops are a perfect reason why these cases need special appointed prosecutors, and not these DAs who will always let the cops off the hook when they do something wrong.

Aussie792 · Dec 29, 2015

Abolish grand juries and separate prosecutors from the police. Replace low-level local prosecutors with private lawyers instructed by a central prosecuting office.

Grand juries are unprofessional; committal hearings as exist elsewhere are far more open, just and professional. Unfortunately, the United States has a fused legal profession which makes police-prosecution relations more personal, but you can still distance prosecutors from police by ensuring that prosecutors work from a central office separate from police, so that they don't have overly strong affiliations with particular police officers or local departments, and establishing strict protocol for formal and informal police-prosecution interactions. Ideally, the US would develop a split legal profession, but I doubt that will come to pass.

US criminal law is rather behind when it comes to procedure. It means that not only do people like this policeman get off, they don't even go to trial to prove their innocence in the first place. It's horribly unjust.

There also need to be harsher non-criminal penalties for police officers who use firearms so wantonly. It'll at least be a deterrent if there is a mandatory disciplinary procedure, even if there is no actual justice.

General News Same Outcome, Different Place. No Indictment in Tamir Rice Killing

BryanM
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General News Same Outcome, Different Place. No Indictment in Tamir Rice Killing

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