Officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice hired as a cop again

SmCaudata

Senior member
Oct 8, 2006
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So ridiculous. I mean shooting a kid and being declared unfit for duty tells me he probably shouldn't be protecting the public. Give him a chance at a desk job maybe.

I think they should give officers the option to make 50% more money by not carrying weapons.

They should also make police unions have to fund lawsuits rather than the city or state.

Do those two things and I bet you'd see an instant turnaround in who's on the force.
 

pauldun170

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2011
9,133
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Reminder
CLEVELAND — The police officer who fatally shot a 12-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun fired within 1½ to 2 seconds of pulling up in his cruiser, police said Wednesday. During those few moments, he ordered the youngster three times to put up his hands, they said.

The city released a surveillance video that shows the shooting of Tamir Rice, who was carrying an airsoft gun that shoots non-lethal plastic pellets.

Much of the footage shows what appears to be a bored kid alone in a park on an unseasonably warm November afternoon. Tamir is seen pacing, occasionally extending his right arm with what appears to be a gun in his hand, talking on a cellphone and sitting at a picnic table with his head resting on his arms.

The gun wasn’t real. It can be bought at sporting goods stores for less than $20. Tamir’s was lacking the bright orange tip that is usually put on such weapons to indicate they’re not real guns.
...
The patrol officer who shot Tamir was identified Wednesday as Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old rookie who began his career in Cleveland on March 3. He previously spent five months in 2012 with a department in suburban Independence, but four of those months were in that city’s police academy.
...
On Saturday, a person had called 911 about a male pointing a gun at others at the park. The caller told the 911 dispatcher that the gun was “probably fake,” then added, “I don’t know if it’s real or not.”
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
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A key fact in that case, however, was that the 911 caller who reported Rice twice told the operator that the gun "was probably fake." The investigation revealed that this information had not been passed on to the officers. They had been told that he had a gun, and the police who arrived at the scene saw what looked like a gun. This particular pellet gun did not have the telltale orange barrel tip which indicates that it isn't a real run. Had the dispatcher told the police that the caller said the gun was likely a fake, Rice would probably still be alive.

The officer had been declared unfit in his previous job, and lied about this to the Cleveland PD when he applied. You'd think that alone would be sufficient reason for him not to be hired again.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
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Also remember it is legal to carry in Ohio even if it were real.

But it isn't legal to brandish and/or point a real gun at people in public.

The reality is, the boy was brandishing a toy gun, and was actually doing nothing wrong. But due to a serious communication error and the toy for whatever reason not having the telltale orange barrel tip the police shot him.
 

HomerJS

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
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But it isn't legal to brandish and/or point a real gun at people in public.

The reality is, the boy was brandishing a toy gun, and was actually doing nothing wrong. But due to a serious communication error and the toy for whatever reason not having the telltale orange barrel tip the police shot him.
The 911 call said it was fake and Tamir Rice was 12.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
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The 911 call said it was fake and Tamir Rice was 12.

Yes, the caller twice said the gun was "probably fake" and that Rice "looked like a juvenile." But as I said above, the investigation revealed that this information was not passed on to the police. The dispatch call just said "gun." I'm saying someone was negligent here, but not necessarily the police on scene.
 

FaaR

Golden Member
Dec 28, 2007
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I'm saying someone was negligent here, but not necessarily the police on scene.
Other mistakes were made, sure, but dude, applying deadly force at someone who is obviously a small child within 2 seconds of arriving on the scene is not negligence? Actually, I'd use even stronger descriptions.

I dunno, maybe you Mericans have become blinded as to what is reasonable behavior by the very high overall level of violence in your society (and your authoritarian gov't), but man... That's so fscked-up.
 
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woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
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Other mistakes were made, sure, but dude, applying deadly force at someone who is obviously a small child within 2 seconds of arriving on the scene is not negligence? Actually, I'd use even stronger descriptions.

I dunno, maybe you Mericans have become blinded as to what is reasonable behavior by the very high overall level of violence in your society (and your authoritarian gov't), but man... That's so fscked-up.

12 years old isn't really a "small child." But the officers didn't really know his age. They could assume he was young but it would have been impossible to precisely gauge his age. 11 or 12 is the onset of puberty. But the age was secondary here. What was primary was that the toy he held looked like this:

2FAA23D800000578-3377431-image-a-4_1451393671403.jpg

The bottom one is real while the top is the toy, but you can only tell that on closer inspection. Yet the cops on scene did not arrive in a mindset that this was or even might be a toy. They were literally told it was a "gun" by the dispatcher.
 

FirNaTine

Senior member
Jun 6, 2005
632
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Other mistakes were made, sure, but dude, applying deadly force at someone who is obviously a small child within 2 seconds of arriving on the scene is not negligence? Actually, I'd use even stronger descriptions.

I dunno, maybe you Mericans have become blinded as to what is reasonable behavior by the very high overall level of violence in your society (and your authoritarian gov't), but man... That's so fscked-up.

He was not "obviously a small child." He was 5'7" and 195 pounds (170 cm and 88kg).

Now, does that excuse other issues in the shooting, like the lack of relaying the caller's belief it was "probably fake," or his decision to shoot two seconds after leaving the vehicle? IMO, no. Should that guy ever get to be a cop again? Again, IMO no, he's too much of a liability.
 

FirNaTine

Senior member
Jun 6, 2005
632
177
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Of all times to hire him again, why would you think now (if ever), would be the right time?

Being familiar with government hiring lead times, he very likely was already in the process to be hired before the recent events that have drawn a spotlight on these occurrences happened.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,718
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I read today that fully 3% of Florida cops had been fired from a previous police position. If that’s true that’s insane, because getting fired as a cop is not easy.
 

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
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I read today that fully 3% of Florida cops had been fired from a previous police position. If that’s true that’s insane, because getting fired as a cop is not easy.

^^ sadly a pay-for article.

 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,188
14,090
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He was not "obviously a small child." He was 5'7" and 195 pounds (170 cm and 88kg).

Now, does that excuse other issues in the shooting, like the lack of relaying the caller's belief it was "probably fake," or his decision to shoot two seconds after leaving the vehicle? IMO, no. Should that guy ever get to be a cop again? Again, IMO no, he's too much of a liability.

I agree that cop should have been unhireable for having been found unfit then lying about it on his job application.

I don't agree about the quick timing of the shoot. The shots were timed based on when Rice pulled the toy gun out of his waistband, not by some arbitrary desire to shoot quickly.

These cops were told he had a gun. They arrive at the scene. The boy, as you said, could easily have been in his mid teens by appearance. Seconds later, the boy pulls a toy replica of an actual real world gun (a Colt 1911) out of his waistband. In their minds, it was shoot or possibly be shot at.
 
Nov 17, 2019
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Somebody said this is a two year old article, but no matter, this is why offending officers need to lose their certification and why there needs to be a national database. If you're on it, you don't get hired as a PO, anywhere.
 

pauldun170

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2011
9,133
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12 years old isn't really a "small child." But the officers didn't really know his age. They could assume he was young but it would have been impossible to precisely gauge his age. 11 or 12 is the onset of puberty. But the age was secondary here. What was primary was that the toy he held looked like this:

View attachment 23250

The bottom one is real while the top is the toy, but you can only tell that on closer inspection. Yet the cops on scene did not arrive in a mindset that this was or even might be a toy. They were literally told it was a "gun" by the dispatcher.

Tamir was a chunky 5'7 12 year old with a child's face and build.
I have kids around that age and I have dealt with plenty of kids who are in the higher percentile on the growth chart.

A 6'9 12 year old still communicates, looks and moves like a 12 year old.

An experienced adult dealing with the public should be able to tell the difference between child and an adult even at the same height and weight.

In this case the officer was not only young and inexperienced, he was also dealing with potentially implicit racial bias. He was also dealing with cultural bias typical of a department in a high crime area. He was dealing with a unusually crappy department over all and he was partnered with a guy who screwed up the entire approach. ("Potentially armed suspect? Lemme drive the car right up to em!!!")
He was also dealing with the fact that he was an incompetent officer overall

Both actually. Screw them both. Screw everyone involved in that case

The prosecutors reminded Clark, and the grand jurors, that the officers had responded to a 911 call about a black male with a gun in a park—an “active shooter,” they said, though no shots had been fired, there was no one nearby to be shot when police arrived, and the black male turned out to be a 12-year-old boy alone in a gazebo. Active shooter. The phrase was used repeatedly, Clark told me. “They had to be brave,” the pacing prosecutor, Matthew Meyer, said. “They were brave that day.” Or maybe they were reckless, which was one of Clark’s conclusions. Maybe if they hadn’t ridden up in a frenzy, the boy wouldn’t be dead. There’s case law about that, Clark started to explain, opinions that can help define whether force was used appropriately.

...
The prop was for them. But it was only theater. Because the boy never pointed a gun at a cop. He wasn’t given the chance to even put his hands up.