The extended video of the Tamir Rice shooting was released and posted on cleveland.com late last night. It confirms the cruel treatment of Tamir's 14 year old sister and the gross indifference of the two cops responsible for the homicide.
In other news, Timothy Loehmann, the first year cop who shoot Tamir within two seconds, was rejected by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department after he applied for a deputy sheriff job on Sept. 3, 2013. Loehmann resigned from the Independence Police Department in 2012 once he was informed that they were going to relieve him of his position once they determined he was unfit for police work.
In February 2013 Loehmann took the civil service exam in Akron but he was not offered a job. The police department in Parma Heights also rejected Loehmann.
Update 11:00 AM January 8, 2015 - Please read Shaun King's excellent diary on the shooting of Tamir Rice including additional background information on CPD officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The text in blockquote is from cleveland.com: http://www.cleveland.com/...
As we have seen before, the police cruiser pulls up on the grass suddenly, very near Tamir and Officer Loehmann gets out of the passenger side door and shoots Tamir in less than two seconds. It appears that Loehmann slips and recovers after shooting Tamir. He then ran around the back of the cruiser and tends to his leg while his partner circles around front with his gun pointed at the dying boy.
The girl, who was at the park with Tamir, ran to her brother's side when she heard two gunshots fired by first-year Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann.
As the girl neared her brother, Loehmann's partner, Frank Garmback confronted her and forced her to the ground. Loehmann rushed over, and the two knelt beside her as she rolled on the ground. Eventually the officers handcuffed the girl and placed her in the back of the police cruiser, less than 10 feet from her dying brother.
An attorney representing the Rice family called the video "shocking and outrageous."
"This has to be the cruelest thing I've ever seen," Akron-based attorney Walter Madison said.
The officers then simply stood around, one with his hands on his hips, as Tamir lay bleeding on the ground. Neither officer made any effort to check on him, provide first aid or provide any comfort.
Four minutes after the shooting a man identified as an FBI agent began administering first aid as the Cleveland police officers did nothing. EMS arrived about eight minutes after the shooting and the paramedics took over.
About thirteen minutes after the shooting Tamir is seen on a stretcher as he is placed in the EMS vehicle. He died the following day.
An attorney, Walter Madison, said the video caught the Cleveland Police officers showing "overwhelming indifference" as the young boy lay gravely injured on the ground and his sister was handcuffed in the back of their cruiser.
"No one thinks that it's appropriate to try to save him," Madison said. "The first person who does is not affiliated with the Cleveland police department.
"This is the level of service that makes people very upset and distrustful of law enforcement."
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's administration denied a request for 90 minutes of video after the shooting saying it was part of an ongoing investigation.
In other news, this week Mayor Frank Jackson announced that he was turning the investigation over to the Cuyahoga Sheriff's Department for a thorough investigation.
Chief Clifford Pinkney, second in rank only to Sheriff Frank Bova, will lead a team of detectives in probing the shooting. Pinkney has promised to conduct a thorough review.
Once their investigation is completed their department will hand over the evidence to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty's office and the evidence will be presented to a grand jury.
Observers wondered why the investigation was not turned over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI), the investigative agency under the Ohio Attorney General's Office. The BCI also operates the three crime labs in the state of Ohio. Attorney General Mike DeWine(R) appeared on radio station WTAM 1100 AM in Cleveland (Independence) to confirm that Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson(D) had made the decision to hand the case to the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department, but they remained "good friends."
The host asked if Jackson declined to give the Tamir Rice case to the BCI and the Attorney General's Office because of the 2012 case involving a chase by scores of Cleveland police cruisers that ended with over 130 bullets fired into the unarmed couple's car in East Cleveland. The BCI and the Attorney General's report found that there was a "systemic failure" in the Cleveland Police Department leadership leading to a breakdown of protocol by police officers.
The United States Department of Justice subsequently opened an investigation of the excessive use of force by the Cleveland Police Department. Their report, released in November 2014, found that the Cleveland Police Department had a history of using excessive force, including deadly force, on numerous occasions. In addition, the DOJ found that the CPD was lacking in how it trains officers in using deadly force, investigates uses of deadly force and disciplines officers for using force. As a result, the City of Cleveland entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to work toward correcting the problems, including changing the culture, known to exist within the Cleveland Police Department.
Update 8:30 AM January 8, 2015
Mayor Frank Jackson said he didn't trust the Attorney General, Mike DeWine, with the Tamir Rice investigation because of the way the East Cleveland shooting was handled by DeWine and the BCI. http://www.cleveland.com/...
Jackson said he based his decision on the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation's review of a November 2012 case in which Cleveland police shot to death two unarmed suspects after chasing the couple into East Cleveland.
"I don't think the state attorney general handled the East Cleveland shooting properly," Jackson said. "It wasn't done in a way that I think gave me confidence that this would have been done properly. So that's why we turned to the county."
"The releasing of information in that case was unprecedented for a criminal proceeding," Jackson said at the time. "I don't have confidence that a BCI probe into police use-of-force would be a transparent, due-process kind of investigation."
In another update, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff has asked the Attorney General and the BCI for help with firearm forensics and technical assistance with the Tamir Rice case. Mayor Jackson tried to keep AG DeWine and the BCI away from this case, hoping for a better outcome than the East Cleveland CPD execution of an unarmed couple. In that case AG DeWine and the BCI blamed the CPD and its leadership for "systemic failure." And that helped the DOJ investigation which found that the CPD failed to train its officers properly regarding the use of deadly force, that the CPD fails to properly investigate the uses of deadly force and the CPD fails to properly discipline its officers for the use of force, especially deadly force.
I do not like AG Mike DeWine at all and I disliked having him represent Ohio as a senator. But his office and the BCI did not allow Mayor Frank Jackson and the CPD leadership to sweep the execution of an unarmed couple in 2012 under the rug. As a result, six CPD officers were indicted, one for manslaughter, for their roles in that excessive use of deadly force, i.e., the execution.
Hopefully, the fact that the Cuyahoga County Sheriff has requested the help of the AG's office and the BCI with its expertise might result in a similar outcome, preventing the Mayor and the CPD leadership from sweeping the slaying of Tamir Rice under the rug to save the likes of Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback from facing justice.
I am looking forward to writing a diary on the day a grand jury indicts both men, Frank Garmback and Timothy Loehmann, who should never be able to carry a weapon again, never be issued a badge again and never be placed in a position of policing the public again.
Update 11:00 AM January 8, 2015 - Please read Shaun King's excellent diary on the shooting of Tamir Rice including additional background information on CPD officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback.
http://www.dailykos.com/...