Lawyers for Tamir Rice’s family release outside reports criticizing shooting

Lawyers for the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy fatally shot last year by the Cleveland police, have presented Ohio prosecutors with two outside reports that call an officer’s decision to shoot the boy “unreasonable.”

The reports, made public Saturday night, are at odds with three previous investigations commissioned by the prosecutor’s office that labeled the shooting as tragic but reasonable. Grand jurors are expected to consider all those reports in deciding whether the police should face criminal charges.

Since Officer Tim Loehmann shot Tamir outside a recreation center on Nov. 22, 2014, the case has become a focal point in the national movement protesting the deaths of black people at the hands of police.

In the reports provided by the Rice family’s lawyers, two former high-ranking officials at California law-enforcement agencies criticized Loehmann’s decision to fire his weapon and said the loss of life was avoidable.

“The officers engaged in reckless tactical decision making, they unreasonably placed themselves in harm’s way and Officer Loehmann’s use of deadly force was excessive, objectively unreasonable, and inconsistent with generally accepted police practices,” Jeffrey J. Noble, a former deputy police chief in Irvine, Calif., wrote in his report.

Noble’s report, as well as one written by Roger A. Clark, a former lieutenant in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, reached a conclusion opposite of those previously released by prosecutors. The earlier reports found that Loehmann reasonably feared for his life and that the split-second decision to shoot Tamir could be justified under the circumstances. Tamir had been carrying a replica gun given to him by a friend.

Lawyers for the Rice family have criticized the Cuyahoga County prosecutor, Timothy J. McGinty, for his handling of the case and have requested that he step aside and appoint a special prosecutor. The family has labeled the shooting as unjustified and called for criminal charges against Loehmann and his partner, Officer Frank Garmback, who was driving the police car but did not fire his gun.

McGinty has said he was releasing expert reports and other investigative documents as they became available, in the interest of transparency. Months ago he invited the Rice family to submit its own reports for consideration by grand jurors. Prosecutors have not said when grand jurors will decide whether to indict.

“Our stated policy in all use of deadly force cases is to welcome all relevant evidence and let the grand jury evaluate and make the decision,” McGinty said Saturday in a statement about the new reports. “This process is a wide open search for the truth.”

The shooting of Tamir was captured on surveillance video, which has been circulated widely online and has been cited by various people either as a reason to charge the officers or as evidence that police acted appropriately. On Saturday, McGinty released enhanced still images from surveillance cameras showing the encounter frame by frame, including Tamir’s movements as police arrived, Loehmann’s quick exit from the cruiser, the gunshots and the aftermath of the shooting.

Loehmann and Garmback had been responding to a call about a person in a park with a gun, but they knew few details about the situation. The dispatcher did not relay a 911 caller’s caveats that the person was “probably a juvenile” and that the weapon was “probably fake.”

Some of the previously released reports said the lack of information given by the dispatcher and Garmback’s decision to pull the cruiser within feet of Tamir had to be divorced from Loehmann’s decision to fire after being placed in that situation.

But the reports provided by the Rice family lawyers criticized Loehmann’s tactics, questioned his professional qualifications and said he was wrong to shoot.

“The killing of this child was completely avoidable and preventable,” wrote Clark, the former California sheriff’s lieutenant, “and should never have occurred.”

This story was originally published November 29, 2015 at 10:27 AM with the headline "Lawyers for Tamir Rice’s family release outside reports criticizing shooting."