Do you remember the name Tamir Rice?
He was the 12 year old who was shot and killed by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann, while he and his partner responded to a dispatch call that someone was in a public park, pointing a gun at people.
The person who called the police said the gun “was probably fake”. But the dispatcher did not relay that speculation to Officer Timothy Loehmann or his partner, Officer Frank Garmback (not that it would matter, since the determination would have to have been theirs, not an unnamed caller\’s).
When officer Loehmann arrived, the person with the gun – which, importantly, had all the “toy” markings removed and looked very real – reached for it. Loehmann had a split second to decide whether or not he was about to be shot dead. So he shot first.
It turned out that the gun was, in fact a toy (or a BB gun, which is more than a toy to me), and the person holding and aiming it at others, then possibly him if he had been allowed to, was 12 year old Tamir Rice.
Here is the contemporanous account, according to Cory Shaffer\’s article for cleveland.com:
Police were responding to reports of a male with a gun outside Cudell Recreation Center at Detroit Avenue and West Boulevard about 3:30 p.m., Deputy Chief of Field Operations Ed Tomba said.
A rookie officer and a 10-15 year veteran pulled into the parking lot and saw a few people sitting underneath a pavilion next to the center. The rookie officer saw a black gun sitting on the table, and he saw the boy pick up the gun and put it in his waistband, Cleveland Police Patrolmen\’s Association President Jeffrey Follmer said.
The officer got out of the car and told the boy to put his hands up. The boy reached into his waistband, pulled out the gun and the rookie officer fired two shots, Tomba said.
What would you have done? Would you have waited for the person with the gun – whatever his or her age – to take it out and maybe start shooting? Maybe hit you and/or your partner? That is the situation Officer Loehmann was in….and it is worth thinking long and hard about.
In any event, this week, a municipal court judge has recommended that Officer Loehmann, and Officer Garmback, be charged and that this should go to trial. So far it is a recommendation only, the judge did not have standing to order that the trial take place.
From Kim Palmer\’s article for Reuters:
Municipal Court Judge Ronald Adrine said Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann, whose shooting of Tamir Rice was captured on video, should face charges including murder, involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide. Loehmann\’s partner, Frank Garmback, should face negligent homicide and dereliction of duty charges, he found.
That said, I agree with the judge\’s recommendation – at least for Officer Loehmann (I\’m not so sure about Officer Garmback).
In this particular case, when an innocent 12 year old is shot dead for what, in his mind, was probably a silly little game, it seems to me that a jury should decide if officer Loehmann did or did not act appropriately.
Let the trial go one, and let the facts lead where they should.
