Did you catch this yesterday?
(ABC News) An Ohio Grand Jury has declined to indict two police officers in the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was shot dead by a Cleveland police officer last year, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said today. (snip)
Tamir was holding a toy gun when he was shot by officer Timothy Loehmann at a Cleveland playground in November 2014. The grand jury was hearing evidence to determine if any charges would be brought against Loehmann or his partner, Frank Garmback. (snip)
Matthew Meyer, chief prosecutor of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s public corruption unit, said the officer who shot Tamir was “tragically mistaken” and didn’t know until it was too late that Tamir posed no threat to the officers or the community.
Meyer said the shooting was the result of a “tragic confluence of events”: Tamir appeared much older and larger than 12 years old; officers believed it was a real gun; the rec center security monitors were kept in a locked room and were not monitored by the on-duty guard.
What did the gun look like?
A photo released today by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office shows what it says is a real gun next to the replica gun 12-year-old Tamir Rice had the day he was shot dead by a Cleveland, Ohio, police officer.
Can you tell? I suppose if you are a big gun enthusiast. Maybe if you look long enough, you’ll be able to correctly guess. The officers didn’t. They had seconds.
The report said that an orange tip that would normally be on the fake gun was removed along with its laser sight in Tamir’s case. Typically there is a warning on the packaging indicating that removing the orange tip of the gun “is dangerous, may cause confusion, may be mistaken to be a real firearm by law enforcement officers or others and may be a crime.”
“Although there is evidence that on the day of the incident, at least two people warned Tamir about the dangerousness of using the gun in a public place, there is no evidence that Tamir ever saw any warnings from the gun’s packaging,” the report said.
Rather changes the dynamics of the situation, wouldn’t you say?
Ace, though, at Ace of Spades HQ, makes an interesting point about the officers rolling up and not really leaving themselves the proper time to make a judgement call, and that the grand jury decision is a pretty tough call either way. And that, perhaps, we don’t need trigger happy cops on the streets. Also
And What If the Gun Had Been Real? I don’t mean that as an exculpatory hypothetical — I mean, if the gun had been real, why would someone carrying a gun be shot so quickly in an Open Carry state?
An interesting point. The officers claim that Rice reached into his waistband and pulled the gun out upon them pulling up. A man who called 911 about Rice, resulting in the officers being dispatched, said he feared for his life and that Tamir had point the gun at a woman’s face. He did tell 911 that the gun was probably fake, but, he didn’t know for sure. And that he had been pulling it out of his pants a lot and pointing it.
So, yes, it’s a tragic confluence of events.
But, it’s not about racism.
Oh, and which gun is fake? The top one.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
You will soon see the rules of engagement change to the police may not fire until fired upon.
You use a lot of Star Trek gifs to illustrate your articles; I guess when the police have phasers that can be set on stun, the problem will be solved.
Also don’t forget that a brief was recently sent to police to be aware that people are painting/decorating real guns to look like toy guns.
As for not leaving themselves enough time to make a judgement call, exactly how long should they give? In less than 2 seconds a gun can be drawn and fired.
All of this comes down to one thing and that is teaching. I have been around guns my whole life. From toy guns to BB/pellet guns to semi-automatic rifles. Even shot full automatic 50 cals in the Navy. The first thing I was taught and was strictly enforced as a child with his first BB gun was to NEVER point it at anyone, EVER.
Great point about pointing, Nighthawk.
Unless the kid was mentally deficient, he knew that he was menacing and scaring people with his gun. He kept doing it anyway. His momma said that he was an A student, so he wasn’t mentally deficient. He had to have been socially deficient, though, to take pleasure in scaring people.
There is a young man on my street that plays airsoft. He and his friends pull up to his house at midnight and pile out of the car wearing full black military-style combat gear and carrying an assortment of “assault” rifles and submachine guns. Even in the light of the garage the guns are very realistic. In the dark these guys look like a full-on hit squad. Which is what they are aiming for, I imagine. The protective gear is functional for their competitions but it looks real. They are good kids, but if lightning struck and the cops were out hunting armed terrorists when they came across this bunch, disaster could happen. Most likely, though, is that these guys would throw down their weapons and submit at the first sign of trouble. And that is the difference between momma’s “good boy” and these good boys.
This was a bad situation made worse by the actions of the police.
At the time of the call and at the time the officers came upon the scene, there was no one in danger to a kid with a gun. No one was in the line of fire and no one was at risk.
People are taught to not point a gun at anyone but that leads to the question of whether one should have assumed that Rice had an actual gun or whether he had received such training.
We do know that the police had training and they violated almost every rule of that training. They failed to observe the situation. They failed to keep a distance and establish a perimeter to keep the person with the gun contained. They failed to assess the situation as to whether they were dealing with a threat or a person with mental issues.
Police go through a training where they are taught to keep people away from them in situations to a distance of roughly 20 feet. It was not Rice who violated that distance, it was the officers when they pulled up too close to Rice and then exited the vehicle with guns drawn.
Were the actions of the police criminal? Maybe not. Were they the best course of action? Absolutely not. Were they contrary to their training? Absolutely yes.
My prediction is that this scenario will be used in training police to show them exactly what not to do.
If this had been a middle-aged white male brandishing a real pistol he would very likely NOT have been shot.
Our officers are conditioned to view young Black men as more dangerous than whites, leading to the recent published rash of police shootings of Black men.
The blessing and curse of our internet is the rapidity with which videos are distributed and viewed, which has led to the masses seeing what has actually been happening, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Jeffrey wrote:
Now, that’s a fair statement — certainly a surprise coming from Jeffrey! — but it leads to the obvious question: if “officers are conditioned to view young Black men as more dangerous than whites,” why is that so? Is it some insidious racism, or is it possible that young black men have proven to be more violent and more dangerous than whites?
LOL at Jeffery making sh!t up again. Poor kid, living in his fantasy world.
People pointing guns at cops get shot. Period.
On a related note, I’ve got a good friend on LA Swat and I have hung out with him and his colleagues and heard their stories. They are white, black, asian, latino, and other. Everything they think about is tactical. They couldn’t care less what the race of the suspect is. All they care about is the tactical situation and perhaps the suspect’s size and weight. If someone is inebriated or insane, they try if possible to use the dog or beanbag gun. If someone is holed up and not visible, tear gas or flashbangs or dog. Non-lethal doesn’t always work and often takes multiple tries. A 300-pound Samoan on PCP doesn’t feel the dog’s teeth or get knocked down by beanbags. If anyone are pointing a gun at the cops, or more commonly, another civilian, they will get shot dead to save lives. Not much choice there. Rules of engagement. And their family will sue. Every time.
Statistically, young black males are more dangerous than white males, so the officers are conditioned by reality. “The rash of police shootings of black men.” The elephant in the room, of course, is the rash of shootings of black men killing black men.
Dana,
It’s the officers’ perception (and many other’s) that Blacks are more violent, but whether that is based on inherent racism, officer’s own experiences, what they hear from other officers, or from what they read in right-wing internet sites does not excuse the shooting of a 12 year old boy with a toy gun. Surely you’re not suggesting that 12 year olds with toy guns deserve to be shot because other Black men may be more violent??? So it’s the fault of the victim because he’s Black?? Thanks for making my point.
jglanton,
And Black people also get shot for running from cops, playing with toy guns in Walmart, walking toward cops, leaving a birthday party, reaching for a cell phone, driving, protecting a sibling, reaching for a wallet, leaving a bachelor party, being autistic, having marijuana, being face down on a train platform, walking, and on and on.
These types of shootings appear to happen proportionally more frequently to minorities.
Maybe you should continue to concentrate on boobs and bottoms.
To change the subject jl typed:
That Black men kill other Black men does not excuse our police officers shooting unarmed Black men. Tamir Rice didn’t kill anyone, nor was he a threat.
I’m amazed that conservatives and libertarians are not upset that State agents too often act as judge, jury and executioner without due process.
Apparently ACE typed:
Would a white guy have been shot under the same circumstances as Rice? That’s pretty unlikely.
Once again spouting his leftist bullshit.
• And officers hesitated significantly longer before shooting armed suspects who were black, compared to armed subjects who were white or Hispanic
https://www.policeone.com/use-of-force/articles/7653755-Cops-hesitate-more-err-less-when-shooting-black-suspects-study-finds/
Once again spouting right-wing bullshit.
How thorough was your investigation? A single pilot study performed in a laboratory that is contradicted by all other studies and real world experience? lol There was no data at all in the reports. Did you pay the $39.99 to access all the data? If so, can you describe the data from this small pilot study?
You failed to note from the study that “police and military participants had better shooting accuracy, fired faster follow-on shots” than the civilian volunteers.