Investigation Report Released In The Death of Tamir Rice
The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office today released the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department investigation into the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice on November 22, 2014.
Tamir Rice was shot outside the Cudell Recreation Center on Cleveland’s West Side on a Saturday afternoon and died at MetroHealth Medical Center the following day. He was fatally shot by a police officer responding to a 911 call that someone had a gun in the park. The caller told 911 dispatch that the gun was probably a fake, and the guy with it was a kid. However, that information was not conveyed to the police by the dispatcher.
At the request of the Cleveland Division of Police, the Sheriff’s Department took over the use of deadly force investigation in January of this year. On June 3, Sheriff Clifford Pinkney delivered his investigative report to Prosecutor McGinty. The Sheriff’s Department was assisted in its work by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI).
The prosecutor will present the evidence to a grand jury. Members of the Grand Jury also can ask to hear from additional witnesses, including expert witnesses, and the grand jury ultimately makes the final decision on whether criminal charges are warranted.
The final investigation report is in 6 parts. Generally, we place documents such as investigation reports under the “Document” section on the right-side border of this blog. Because the report consists of 6 parts, we will place a link to this post under documents instead.
Here is the investigation report;
Posted on 06/13/2015, in Cases, Cops Gone Wild, Tamir Rice and tagged Cleveland, grand jury, investigative report, Ohio, Tamir Rice. Bookmark the permalink. 40 Comments.
We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident 
The report is hard to read, so brutally honest as to the incomprehensible lack of time it took to kill this child. The report’s description of the video shows nothing in Tamir’s hands nor did it show any aggressive action on his part.
I’ve personally never watched the video.
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Hey Mindyme! I’ve watched the video. Before the cop car stopped good, Tamir was shot down. I only read the first page of the investigation report — (always have problems when adding to the blog’s menu because I don’t do it enough to remember automatically how it’s done), so will try to read more of it later. With the judge’s recent decision that there is probable cause for charging the two officers, we can only hope that the grand jury receives that decision.
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I wish the grand jury would read the words of that report.. and really understand what they convey
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Reckless Homicide and Dereliction of duty absolutely apply, if not Murder.
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Yes.
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Xena,
Great job downloading the investigative report. It must have taken you forever.
I am reading part 1.
Interesting that all they originally had on record was that Ofc. Loehmann “resigned prior to accepting his police commission due to personal reasons. I think this indicates that the Cleveland Police Dept. did not check Loehmann out with the Police Chief of Independence prior to hiring him into the CPD.
Another interesting item:
The Dispatcher when being interviewed
” Refused to answer questions (per her attorney) about not relaying specific information related to the 911 call on November 22, 2014.”
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The dispatcher refusing to answer questions really surprised me. I wonder if there is a threat of being charged with a crime and wonder what that would be?
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You know what upsets me? It is that so many White people cannot tell the age of Black youths. Seems that perhaps they only use height in determining age. As a summer playground director in college and as a teacher, I certainly had no trouble determining the age of Black youth. I would have known Tamir’s age and especially that he was certainly not 20 as one person thought or an adult as others thought. Do you know that the hospital had an ADULT tube ready to use for Tamir to go down his throat to see what damage had been done to his abdomen because the call to them said and adult was being brought in??
Also, I wonder if White policeman who perhaps can tell the age might use the “I thought he was an adult” excuse to get themselves off the hook.
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In Tamir’s case, I imagine people went no further than using his weight (195 pounds at 5’7″) to rush to judgment as to his age.
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Yahtzee, I was 5’6″ by the time I was 12. I remember that my mom said she dressed me for my age and not my height. But, that was a time when girls did not wear pants to school and it was also before unisex clothing.
Also, I have a friend who was a body builder. When he was 45, he was in a car accident. The paramedics arriving asked him his age. He told them “45” but they thought he was delirious from the accident and they wrote down “25.” It was not until they opened his shirt to put on that thingy to monitor his heart, and saw the grey chest hair, that they doubted their own perception. 🙂
Remember Jessie Hernandez? Her body laid in the street and the EMTs passed it because they were told the person shot was a girl, and they assumed that Jessie was a boy.
In my opinion, I think Darren Wilson didn’t know the difference between a facial expression of pain, and one that looks like an angered “demon.”
What’s that saying about “assumptions”? 🙂
The horrible thing about Tamir is that within minutes, his sister arrived and the cops could have asked her his age instead of handcuffing her and placing her in the cop car.
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I admit I’m terrible at guessing ages of youth especially teen girls, some I would guess to be 20 and they were 14. Some youth mature physically at a younger age then their counterparts and it is those who throw me off. My son’s best friend could grow a full beard at 16 and when he did it would hide the youthful appearance of his actual age.
Tamir’ photos, that have been released, show a young boy’s face even if he was tall for his age.
Xena…I agree the the police should have tried to obtain information from his sister instead of leaving her in the car.
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Towerflower, I admit that the only time I was in position to judge someone’s age, was when my son was a teen dating. When they reach 18 and a girl appears at your house who looks 13, interrogation as the opposite of the shotgun approach kicks in. LOL!
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Yahtzeebutterfly,
Finally, I get to finish my response to you. 🙂 We’ve had storms here and I try staying off the computer when it’s lightning. It’s because of your experience that you recognize children from adults. We cannot say that all police officers have that experience with any children other than those in their own homes. Most work in communities where they do not live and thus, are unfamiliar with the residents. Experience working with the public is knowledge, and law enforcement really needs that experience to qualify for the force.
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Xena, I am going to take your comment about experience here to comment on a community’s perception and conclusions about/of police LE based upon what it witnesses of police behavior toward them.
Yes, experience makes all the difference.
I lacked an important experience…the experience of living in a predominately all Black community where I would have witnessed how differently police interact with its members than how they interacted people in my White neighborhood.
It was only until being on internet comment forums starting in March of 2012 that I became aware of the Black experience of being unjustly stopped by LE because of LE using criminal profiling and negative stereotyping of anyone who is Black. It was only as fellow commenters who are African American shared their experiences of being stopped by LE and many times being mistreated and disrespected by LE even though they had done nothing wrong.
What bothers me is that many White people who hear from a Black person who has been unjustly treated simply because that person is Black refuse to believe it or they simply dismiss it as an exception instead of being the norm/typical for the Black community. I believe this is because White people (even those with good hearts who don’t consider themselves biased) lack the first hand experience (by living in a Black community) of witnessing first hand the multitudes of negative police interactions with members of the Black community.
I commend those White individuals here on this blog and other blogs who like me take the word of and believe African Americans who share their personal experiences and inform us that this is the norm for the Black community.
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To continue:
I realize, too, my perception of the majority of cops being good, is erroneously based upon only witnessing policemen interacting with Whites and not realizing that those particular police officers have not been tested by serving in a predominately Black community.
I don’t blame members of a predominately Black community considering all cops “bad” based on what they have personally experienced or have witnessed in their community as a whole.
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Yahtzeebutterfly,
I appreciate your sharing. Generalizations are not always true. There are Black communities that do not consider all cops are bad, just as their are poor White communities that do consider that all cops are bad. The premise, I suspect, is that anyone with a gun and a badge has potential of abusing their authority, using excessive force, taking life, and giving their side of the story so there is no accountability. Let me emphasize; no accountability.
The same happens in other professions. For example, there are loads of lawyer jokes and a good portion of the population will say there is no such thing as an honest lawyer. Why is that? Because when lawyers cause harm to their clients, those clients have no place to turn except those commissions made up of lawyers to hold bad lawyers accountable, and most times they do not, or just give them a slap on the wrist. Well — we can forget lawyers causing harm to opposing parties because when harm is caused during a case, those commissions hearing complaints consider it as a judicial matter so the door is closed.
Bottom line? Those in positions of public trust, who sit as judges of the unlawful actions of others who are also in positions of public trust, is the reason why citizens form their opinions. It’s the system, the only system to correct wrongs, that is biased and corrupt.
There is nothing in America that is now common, without it first going through the judicial system. “Bad cops” did not begin in predominately Black communities. They began by protecting organized crime, and with those judicial decisions, used them to avoid prosecution when the same acts were repeated. Keep in mind that the entire Chicago police force was unable to stop Al Capone because they and the judges were bought and paid for by Capone’s organization.
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Xena,
Thanks for your excellent points.
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Yahtzeebutterfly,
Thanks for seeing my position. The majority of problems in America are based on judicial decisions, and those decisions are interpretation of laws. Just imagine if the the same law for justified homicide that applies to citizens also applied to law enforcement? The “reasonable person” would apply. However, legislatures have given judges a separate law for law enforcement committing homicide during the course of their job, and judges have lowered the standard for “reasonable person” so there are no legal consequences for their actions.
So what do we get? Law enforcement who commits homicide testifying of their fear. Why is their fear on a lower scale than the fear of any other citizen?
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Xena,
I know.
Hopefully, with continued pressure and with people on internet bringing cases of injustice into the light as well as demanding change, state legislators will take action and adjust the laws.
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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Hey there Jueseppi! Thanks for the reblog, dear friend.
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Reblogged this on Blissfully Single.
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Jan, thanks for the reblog, dear friend.
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There was a story about this report at Slate.
There are two things that I noticed:
1) None of the witnesses heard Lohmann give Tamir any orders before he fired.
2) Neither Lohmann nor the driver were interviewed for the report but the other officers were allowed to repeat what both officers had told them.
That’s the second lie that we know Lohmann told about the incident, and the only way we can get the truth is a trial.
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Roderick, you touch on something profound. If neither of the officers take the witness stand, their story will not be told to the jury. Hopefully, the prosecutors won’t do what they did in Zimmerman’s trial and allow others to talk for the defendants. Of course, this is all on the presumption that the grand jury will indict and there will be a trial or trials.
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Xena, another thing is that Tamir only pointed the gun at passersby.
Wouldn’t that inform someone that maybe it’s a toy and that he was playing?
The same for the James Crawford incident.
Why did the police treat it as an active shooting if no shots had been fired and the same goes-since he was just pointing the gun. Did they consider that it was just a toy.
Also if he was going through the store pointing it at other customers why did only one of them call 911?
If people would stop think and use common sense and not allow their fear and prejudice to rule their lives.
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Roderick, and Shyloh, we are on the same page. TJust like with Crawford, police receive a call about a person in a PUBLIC place with a gun, with people all around them, and yet the person making the call is agitated but not threatened. Well, the same applies to Dillon Taylor as we find that the girl who made the 911 call only thought that Dillon had a gun. So now, the police can protect themselves from accountability by relying on false or impartial reports. Those making those reports are not held accountable either. Human lives are taken based on what people thought.
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Xena, I agree with you.
Anyone who makes a 911 call which contains false information should be punished like someone who files a false police report.
What disturbs me most about these incidents is how everyone involved chose the extreme measures instead of taking baby steps and evaluating the situations.
Why didn’t the 911 caller try to start a conversation with Tamir and maybe he would have at least realized that Tamir was a pre-teen.
Maybe Tamir would have told him that the gun was fake, but the caller jumped to conclusions and kid is dead partly due to his hysterical reaction.
Since Zimmerman murdered Trayvon during a fist fight ( l know I don’t believe it happened either) it seems as if some people believes anything and everything justifies a death sentence.
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Roderick, there might be need as a policy, for dispatch to keep a 911 caller on the phone until the police arrive. Anonymous callers have led to swatting, and deaths of innocent kids and adults.
You mentioned Zimmerman and it reminded me how the police reacted when Shellie called them. Here is a man known for carrying a gun, and known for using a gun to take Trayvon’s life, yet when the deal came down, they questioned Shellie on whether she SAW the gun.
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Roderick….the caller told police he had been a victim of robbery before and was afraid to even make eye contact with Tamir.
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So why was he calmly sitting in the gazebo watching Tamir?
This guy reminds me of the 911 who caused James Crawford’s death.
What bothers me most is that none of the people that Tamir pointed the gun at felt threatened enough to call 911.
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Xena: You mentioned Zimmerman and it reminded me how the police reacted when Shellie called them
Right.
IIRC he stated at one time that the only place he didn’t carry was at his job.
Of course he was carrying when he was on his way to Target when Trayvon caught his attention/sarc.
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If that man that called 911 couldn’t tell that was a young child is beyond me. (maybe he mentioned that I can’t recall) He was tossing snow. Kicking at it. Just child’s play. And he didn’t appear to be in fear if he sat there long enough to make that 911 call. Then afterwards he walked away. Cops came. Booom!!! I truly believe all of the truth will come out.
In my humble opinion 911 need to report all of the callers events and not focus on IS THE SUBJECT BLACK OR WHITE??? IS HE BLACK OR WHITE SIR??? UGH. Clothes are a pretty good description if ya ask me.
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Officer involved shooting took place just about an hour ago in Cleveland
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Apparently there was shooting before and after the police arrived according to neighbors.
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Report is the person was not shot but injured his face on a fence.
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For those interested, Huffington Post provided 4 more reports. I’ve added them to the article.
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The NAACP leader, Rachel Dolezal, has resigned from her position over the controversy dealing with her actual race.
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Towerflower,
Tim Wise had a good article re: Rachel Dolezal:
“Mimicry Is Not Solidarity: Rachel Dolezal and the Creation of Antiracist White Identity Allyship involves working with people of color, not speaking for them.”
http://www.alternet.org/mimicry-not-solidarity-rachel-dolezal-and-creation-antiracist-white-identity
Excerpt:
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deray mckesson retweeted
Jermaine Spradley @MrSpradley
Her understanding of white supremacy and white privilege is precisely why it’s nearly impossible for her to ‘identify as black’.
“A more likely scenario – based more on what we actually know of Rachel Dolezal – is that blackness, for her, was a shortcut.
“Her suing Howard for discrimination based on race is, in my mind, the smoking gun.
“Instead of taking the longer road to black acceptance traversed by many a white folk before her, she just decided to be black. It’s not deep
“And when that road got rough, she fell all the way back on to the age old bastion of white privilege, reverse victimization.”
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