WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it would not file federal criminal charges against two Cleveland police officers in the 2014 murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and said the shooting video was from too low quality for prosecutors. to establish conclusively what had happened.
In closing the case, the department put an end to a lengthy investigation into a high-profile shooting that helped energize the Black Lives Matter movement and became part of the national dialogue on the use of police force. against minorities, including children. The decision, revealed in a lengthy statement, does not approve the officers ’actions, but says the cumulative evidence was not enough to support federal criminal civil rights prosecution.
On November 22, 2014, Tamir was playing with a hair gun in front of a recreation center in Cleveland, when Officer Timothy Loehmann, who is white, was shot dead seconds after he arrived at the scene of the shooting. facts Loehmann and his companion, Officer Frank Garmback. . Officers were called to the recreation center after a man drinking beer and waiting for a bus had called 911 to report that a “boy” was pointing a gun at people. The caller told a 911 office that he was probably a minor and that the weapon could be “fake,” although that information was never passed on to officers.
To file federal civil rights charges in cases like this, the Department of Justice must show that the actions of an officer intentionally violated the law rather than being the result of an error, negligence, or misjudgment. It has been a constant burden for federal prosecutors to meet with both Democratic and Republican administrations, and the Justice Department has declined criminal charges against police officers in other high-profile cases in recent years, including death. by Eric Garner in New York City. and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
In a statement, Subodh Chandra, a lawyer for the boy’s family, said the “process was tainted” by the Justice Department and that the family demanded that prosecutors provide additional information on the recommendations made during the investigation.
“It is incomprehensible that the Department could not recognize that an officer who claimed to have called orders when the patrol car window was closed and it was a winter day is lying,” Chandra said. “The Rice family has been tricked into a fair trial again.”
In this case, the Justice Department said the poor quality surveillance video recorded in the area where the shooting occurred prevented prosecutors from conclusively determining whether or not Rice was looking for his fair toy gun. before shooting him. The two investigated officers told authorities shortly after the shooting that Rice was looking for his toy weapon before he was shot and was given several orders to show his hands.
But the video reviewed by federal prosecutors makes the sequence of events less clear. The time-lapse granular video, which has no audio, “shows no details or perspectives” and the camera’s view is obstructed by a police patrol car, prosecutors said. Also, they said, although the positioning of the boy’s arms suggests they were at the waist, “his hands are not visible in the video and cannot be determined by the video what he was doing.”
The Justice Department says seven experts in the use of force (three detained by the family, four by local authorities) reviewed the recording, but the poor quality of the video on which they were based and their “conflicting opinions added little in the case “. Experts used by the family said the shooting was unreasonable, while the other four said it was reasonable.
The New York Times reported in October that the department had effectively closed the investigation, but Tuesday’s announcement makes it official.
Inconsistent witness statements also complicated any prosecution and none of the people said they saw exactly what Rice was doing just before the shooting, according to the Justice Department.
In a statement at the scene to three other law enforcement officers, Loehmann “repeatedly and consistently stated” that Tamir was looking for a weapon before shooting him, prosecutors said.
Both Loehmann and Garmback also said in statements after the shooting that Loehmann had given Tamir “several orders to show his hands before firing” and that both officers saw him grabbing the gun. Prosecutors said Loehmann and Garmback were the only two witnesses to the “proximity of the shooting.”
A grand state jury had refused to charge Loehmann, although he was later fired after it was discovered he was previously considered “unfit for service.”
The Justice Department also investigated whether officers obstructed justice in statements they made to other investigators shortly after the shooting. Prosecutors concluded that while statements included a different language, they were generally consistent. And because there was not enough evidence to prove the statements to be false, there was also not enough evidence to show that officers attempted to deceive investigators or obstruct an investigation into their actions.