Ken Berwitz
As you no doubt remember, a 12 year old boy named Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer, after he pointed what turned out to be a toy gun at the officer.
We can rehash the particulars of this case and argue over whether the shooting was or was not justified. But let\’s save it for another day.
Today can we all marvel at the astonishing level of obtuseness and insensitivity necessary for what you are about to read to have have happened?
Excerpted from Dylan Stableford\’s article at yahoonews.com:
The city of Cleveland wants the family of Tamir Rice, the12-year-old boy who was fatally shot by police 15 months ago, to pay for hisambulance ride.
According to a creditor\’s claim filed Wednesday in CuyahogaCounty Probate Court, the city is asking to be reimbursed $500 “foremergency medical services rendered as the decedent\’s last dying expense.”An itemized bill from Cleveland EMS includes $450 for “ambulance advancelife support” and $50 for mileage, according to an invoice filed with theclaim.
“The callousness, insensitivity, and poor judgmentrequired for the city to send a bill – its own police officers having slain12-year-old Tamir – is breathtaking,” Subodh Chandra, an attorney for thefamily, said in a statement to NBC\’s WKYC-TV affiliate. “This adds insultto homicide.”
The family, Chandra added, “considers this a form ofharassment.”
Have the powers that be in Cleveland taken leave of their senses?
You may agree with the Rice family and their lawyers that this was a homicide (Tamir Rice was a child, and quite possibly “pointed” the gun at the police to show them it was a toy). You may agree with the police that it was a justifiable shooting (Rice, though 12 years old, was 5\’ 7″ tall and weighed almost 200 pounds, thus may have looked like an adult, and the toy markings were removed from the gun).
But either way, the Rice family lost an innocent 12 year old child. Can Cleveland\’s authorities possibly need $500 so badly that they would send this kind of a bill to young Tamir\’s still-grieving parents?
In the name of basic decency, I would hope that sanity prevails…that the bill for $500 will be rescinded, and apology – a profuse one – will be offered instead.
