And you thought Chicago cops had a lotta of nerve. And they do. But the City of Cleveland may have them beat.
The City of Cleveland filed a creditor’s claim against the estate of Tamir Rice, the black 12-year old who was fatally shot by police in 2014, for not paying emergency medical service fees, CleveScene reported Wednesday.
The $500 fee is “owing for emergency medical services rendered as the decedent’s last dying expense under Ohio Revised Code,” according to the report.
You can read the claim for yourself here.
This is the most recent indignity to be inflicted on Rice’s family since his murder by Cleveland Police Officer Tim Loehmann in November of 2014. Prior to this, it was the Cuyahoga county prosecutor who brought Loehmann before a grand jury but didn’t actually have the grand jury vote on indicting him.
And before that, it was the city’s answer to the family’s wrongful death lawsuit, saying that the 12-year old Rice was responsible for his own death.
And now, the City of Cleveland wants Rice’s family to pay for the aid that emergency medical service rendered to him seven minutes after he was shot. Seven minutes, because they arrived on the scene three minutes after another law enforcement officer–an FBI agent who was in the vicinity, NOT a Cleveland police officer–provided aid to Rice … four minutes after he had been shot.
Its hard to find such a sad, horrific and twisted case of injustice elsewhere.
Its also hard to find any more words to describe it.