The U.S. Department of Justice has concluded its civil rights investigation into the 2014 fatal shooting incident by Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black youth, in Cleveland police, saying there will be no federal criminal charges in the case.
The announcement comes five years after a large jury in Ohio cleared two Cleveland officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, of state charges of trespassing in the death of Rice, who was shot in a playground, while holding a toy gun in had the hands that could shoot grains.
The killing took place when Loehmann fired his rifle at the youth twice within seconds, killing him. Both men are white.
The incident has been one of several high-profile killings of African-American people among U.S. law enforcement over the past few years, sparking protests that led to the Black Lives Matter movement against racial injustice.
The two officers in the Rice case were dispatched following a 911 emergency call that reported a suspect with a gun near a recreation center.
But important information that the caller gave to the stewards – namely that the person in the youth was a juvenile and that the alleged weapon could be a toy – was never passed on to Loehmann and his partner before they reached the scene.
As a result, “the officers believed they were responding to a playground where an adult man was swinging a real gun at individuals, presumably children,” the Department of Civil Rights said in its six-page statement.
In addition, the security camera video of the November 2014 episode was found to be too grainy and taken from too great a distance to describe the circumstances of the shooting unequivocally.
In closing the case without filing charges, the department said it did not have enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any officer had intentionally violated the law, as opposed to a mistake or poor judgment.
“While the death of Tamir Rice is tragic … both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office conclude that this matter is not a continuing violation of federal statutes,” the department said.
Although no criminal charges were filed, the city agreed to pay $ 6 million to the boy’s family to file a civil lawsuit in April 2016 on his death.
Cuyahoga County prosecutors investigating the killings said Rice was planning to hand over the toy weapon he had taken with him – an Airsoft replica of a 45-caliber semi-automatic pistol – or to show officers that it was not real, but that the two policemen had no way of knowing it.
The Airsoft normally comes with an orange dot on its barrel to distinguish it from an actual firearm, but the one that Rice was holding at the time did not, prosecutors said.
The family’s lawyer, Subodh Chandra, said Tamir’s mother was deeply upset about Tuesday’s decision.
“Justice for the family would be to prosecute the officers who killed their child,” Chandra said.