I have seen the video. I see nothing wrong with it.
Not playing, pixy but thanks for replying!
WTH? You see nothing wrong with police marching up to anyone at a gazebo/covered picnic area and killing them before uttering one word to someone?! In an OPEN CARRY state. White or black, child or adult that is fucked up shit! Add in the fact that the dispatcher was TOLD it was a play gun and didn't relay that and the it was a CHILD and BLACK and that is even worse than fucked up.
Sorry to bug you, but I think you know. It doesn't HAVE to go to grand jury, right? Basically, we just have to wait for a DA to decide to take a case to trial and if they are iffy, it goes to Grand Jury to decide if the DA should try someone, right? Why are police shootings in a different justice system cycle than any other murder?
This might be a better question for someone in Ohio. Where I live, no. Nothing has to go to a grand jury, and I don't remember the last time I heard of one being convened. Other states may have different rules that they have to be convened for certain charges.
ETA: I remember my crim law professor in law school saying that sometimes prosecutors prefer to use grand juries to try to test the waters, if they're iffy on whether to bring charges, or if it's a high profile case.
This is my understanding as well. I think they are also used in highly complex cases, like RICO cases involving drug cartels and white collar crime cases where you might have dozens or hundreds of charges of mail and wire fraud, conspiracies, multiple people involved, etc. I do not think they are used in a vast majority of run of the mill crime cases.
This discretion makes me wonder what the stats are in terms of when grand juries are used in murder cases. I'd be interested in stats by color of the suspect versus victim.
I did see something on Facebook where a bill is being proposed in Ohio to require the appointment of a special prosecutor in any case involving officer shootings, which would protect against the county prosecutor having a conflict of interest. It seems like the kind of no-brainer legislation that should pass, but probably won't because people are assholes.
Just so I understand...everyone is upset about the victims age and the color of his skin? And those two factors are why the officers should be charged?
why the officers should be charged is because they rolled up in their car to 10 feet away from what they believed to be armed citizen in an open carry state and proceeded to shoot said subject multiple times without giving him any chance to drop his weapon or explain himself.
It's particularly tragic and upsetting because he was a child. The color of his skin is just the reason this whole mess went down in the first place.
Just so I understand...are you gonna keep on playing dumb? Or are you going to just come right out and say what you're thinking?
Thanks wawa, I was just going to type out that even IF it had been a real gun, it would have been perfectly legal for him to be carrying it. That one fact alone should give every pause.
why the officers should be charged is because they rolled up in their car to 10 feet away from what they believed to be armed citizen in an open carry state and proceeded to shoot said subject multiple times without giving him any chance to drop his weapon or explain himself.
It's particularly tragic and upsetting because he was a child. The color of his skin is just the reason this whole mess went down in the first place.
Just so I understand...are you gonna keep on playing dumb? Or are you going to just come right out and say what you're thinking?
Thanks wawa, I was just going to type out that even IF it had been a real gun, it would have been perfectly legal for him to be carrying it. That one fact alone should give every pause.
It should make everyone nervous. The whole thing is so fucked up. Especially that even if it had been a real gun it would not have been at all illegal.
NO MEDICAL TREATMENT GIVEN. THEY FUCKING LET A CHILD DIE. EVERYONE has a right to due process of law, so it is the officers responsibility to protect their prisoners until they are afforded those rights. There fore under no circumstance should an officer not call for or render aid to an injured prisoner.
I'm so angry. I'm so mad that because this asshole rolls up in here being like oh i saw the video and i see nothing wrong that we even have to try and put in in a term where race wasn't a factor because it ABSOLUTELY IS. I'm rambling because i'm currently to angry after ajm what the fuck evers comment.
I have seen the video. I see nothing wrong with it.
Not playing, pixy but thanks for replying!
It is an open carry state.
White men and women regularly carry their guns wherever the fuck they please and they do not wind up shot. This was a black child with a toy gun. Why doesn't he have the same rights with a toy that grown men have with real actual guns?
Do you honestly think if this child had been white we wouldn't have seen these officers prosecuted?
I have seen the video. I see nothing wrong with it.
Not playing, pixy but thanks for replying!
It is an open carry state.
White men regularly carry their guns wherever the fuck they please and they do not wind up shot. This was a black child with a toy gun. Why doesn't he have the same rights with a toy that grown men have with real actual guns?
Do you honestly think if this child had been white we wouldn't have seen these officers prosecuted?
Unfortunately, I think if this child had been white he wouldn't have been shot. Period. They would've talked to him.
White men regularly carry their guns wherever the fuck they please and they do not wind up shot. This was a black child with a toy gun. Why doesn't he have the same rights with a toy that grown men have with real actual guns?
Do you honestly think if this child had been white we wouldn't have seen these officers prosecuted?
Unfortunately, I think if this child had been white he wouldn't have been shot. Period. They would've talked to him.
Right. That's what I'm saying. But if he had been, there would have been so much public outrage and these officers would be in prison.
Post by downtoearth on Dec 29, 2015 11:59:47 GMT -5
And now the gov and the prosecutor are asking everyone to "calm" down.
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Calls for calm after grand jury declines to indict officers in death of Tamir Rice
Officials here are urging calm after a local grand jury decided not to bring criminal charges against a white rookie Cleveland police officer who in November 2014 shot and killed a 12-year-old African American boy.
“The Grand Jury has fully investigated this case and made its final decision,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said Monday. “Now it is time for our community to learn from this tragedy and start to heal.”
Civil rights activists have called for fresh protests in Cleveland, where police are still working to implement broad changes following a 2014 Justice Department finding that they use their weapons too often.
But McGinty on Monday called “for the leaders of our community to respect the process and the decision of the grand jury and to urge others to express their opinions in a peaceful and lawful manner.”
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson also urged the public to react “peacefully and democratically.”
The grand jury’s decision closed a year-long investigation into one of several police shootings that sparked nationwide protests. It also prompted small demonstrations at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center and at Cudell Park, the recreation center where Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun on the day he was fatally shot.
In announcing the decision, McGinty said that newly enhanced surveillance video made it “undisputably clear” that the boy was reaching into his waistband for the toy — which was “indistinguishable” from a real gun — just before Officer Timothy Loehmann opened fire.
“The outcome will not cheer anyone, nor should it,” McGinty said of the grand jury’s decision. “The death of Tamir Rice was an absolute tragedy. But it was not, by the law that binds us, a crime.”
The case highlights the extraordinary hurdles to pursuing criminal charges when police kill someone, even when the victim is a child. Before the shooting, Tamir can be seen on the surveillance tape playing with snowballs and pointing his gun at imaginary villains. Then Loehmann and his partner drive up. Because the gun appeared to be real, McGinty said, they were reasonably afraid for their lives — and legally justified in responding with deadly force.
McGinty said he informed Tamir’s mother of the grand jury’s decision before announcing it publicly. “It was a tough conversation,” he said. “She was broken up.”
In a statement, Tamir’s mother, Samaria Rice, said she was “devastated” by the decision. She claimed McGinty had “deliberately sabotaged the case,” and she urged federal officials to pursue civil rights charges.
“I don’t want my child to have died for nothing and I refuse to let his legacy or his name be ignored,” the statement said. “As the video shows, Officer Loehmann shot my son in less than a second. All I wanted was someone to be held accountable.”
The shooting took place on Nov. 22, 2014, as Loehmann and his partner, Officer Frank Garmback, were responding to a call about a man with a gun outside a local recreation center. Although the caller specified to the dispatcher that the person was possibly a child playing with a toy, that information was not relayed to Loehmann and Garmback, who handled the call as an “active shooter” situation, authorities said.
The officers approached the boy in their cruiser, pulling directly up to a park gazebo on snow-covered grass. The car slid, and Loehmann opened the door, yelling “continuously ‘show me your hands’ as loud as I could,” Loehmann said in his statement to the grand jury.
“I kept my eyes on the suspect the entire time,” Loehmann said. “I was fixed on his waistband and hand area. I was trained to keep my eyes on his hands because ‘hands may kill.’ ”
But instead of complying, the boy lifted his shirt and reached into his waistband, Loehmann said, prompting the officer to run for cover behind the cruiser.
When he saw Tamir’s elbow moving upward and the weapon coming up out of his pants, Loehmann said, he fired two shots.
ajm796 you're either a LEO or a LEO's wife as per previous posts. I want to know - what should Tamir have done? I'm seriously asking this question, because I want to understand what you believe the proper response in this situation is.
In the 2 seconds between when the police car jumped the curb toward him and when he was on the ground bleeding - WHAT SHOULD HE HAVE DONE? The only thing he'd done wrong up till then was have a toy gun that looked too real. But open carry is legal in this state, and they believed him to be an adult, so as far as they knew he'd broken no laws. So what actions would have saved his life once the 911 call was made? What could he have done better? I need to know.
White men regularly carry their guns wherever the fuck they please and they do not wind up shot. This was a black child with a toy gun. Why doesn't he have the same rights with a toy that grown men have with real actual guns?
Do you honestly think if this child had been white we wouldn't have seen these officers prosecuted?
Unfortunately, I think if this child had been white he wouldn't have been shot. Period. They would've talked to him.
They'd probably give him candy and let him sit in the cop car and turn the siren and lights on.
These what ifs make me almost as sick as the reality.
Post by cookiemdough on Dec 29, 2015 12:04:27 GMT -5
This is a troll. And the fact that someone thinks this is a "fun" topic to get people riled up is indicative of the idgaf mentality that keeps this shit going in our country
Unfortunately, I think if this child had been white he wouldn't have been shot. Period. They would've talked to him.
They'd probably give him candy and let him sit in the cop car and turn the siren and lights on.
These what ifs make me almost as sick as the reality.
In Alliance the same thing happened in May 2015 - a teen with a pellet gun had guns drawn on him. He didn't drop the gun and walked toward the officers, who talked to him, had him put the gun down (which was later determined to be a pellet gun) and walked away alive. No idea if he was black or white... maybe someone in the area knows. But he had time to put the gun down and his hands up before he was killed instantly. fox8.com/2015/05/25/alliance-police-issue-warning-after-teen-refuses-to-drop-pellet-gun/
Not a troll. I've been around for years. But I don't want to risk being called an asshole because I voice an opinion so I never post. Conversation is impossible with all of you.
Anyway, in reference to the fact that it was a toy gun and not related via dispatch...how do they know it's a toy gun? Where is that information coming from.
Has anyone stated whether or not the training officer told Tamir to drop the gun and show his hands when the cruiser rolled up to him? Tamir raises his shirt and reaches for the gun and pulls it out (it's found in the ground next to him from what I've read). What would cause him to do this? Why wouldn't he leave his toy gun in his waistband when the police pull up? Allow the pat down for weapons to occur and then proceed. Why did he even go to his waistband in the first place when they pulled up?
I guess no one finds this unnerving because he's a kid and that's a toy, right?
Anyway, in reference to the fact that it was a toy gun and not related via dispatch...how do they know it's a toy gun? Where is that information coming from.
“There is a guy with a pistol,” the caller had said. “It’s probably fake, but he’s pointing it at everybody.”
______________
Look, if you're going to roll up here with an unpopular argument, you at least need to get your facts straight. Actually do a little research instead of reading whatever the fuck facebook meme's you've been ingesting about this.
Not a troll. I've been around for years. But I don't want to risk being called an asshole because I voice an opinion so I never post. Conversation is impossible with all of you.
Anyway, in reference to the fact that it was a toy gun and not related via dispatch...how do they know it's a toy gun? Where is that information coming from.
Has anyone stated whether or not the training officer told Tamir to drop the gun and show his hands when the cruiser rolled up to him? Tamir raises his shirt and reaches for the gun and pulls it out (it's found in the ground next to him from what I've read). What would cause him to do this? Why wouldn't he leave his toy gun in his waistband when the police pull up? Allow the pat down for weapons to occur and then proceed. Why did he even go to his waistband in the first place when they pulled up?
I guess no one finds this unnerving because he's a kid and that's a toy, right?
That was in the video? Or a recap of events from the officers that made a fatal mistake and have every desire to cover their ass. And yes I think you are trolling. If you have been around forever and interested in a real dialogue, you would not have even phrased the question in such an inflammatory manner as to generate these responses.
I would also like to say, that we give far too much damn credence to "oh, they got a call of a man waving a gun around". John Crawford got blown the fuck away because some dude called and lied his ass off about him walking around, pointing a rifle at kids and "loading it". Too bad it was a fucking BB gun, that was sold IN the Walmart, that he was carrying around the store to buy, and video showed him pointing it at absolutely nobody. Unsurprisingly, nobody got charged in that either, not even the lying son of a bitch who called the cops.
Shit, at this point anybody could call the cops and claim somebody they didn't like was waving a gun around and they'd apparently be cool to just roll up and blast them because, well, somebody said.
I think that's a very solid point. When I was dispatching I often wondered if our questioning didn't unnecessarily amp up a situation. IE a man with a gun, my questions would be
Can you see the? What kind of gun? (hand gun, long gun) Describe the person with the gun? Where is it located? ( in the back of the pants, are they carrying it, in a bag) Have they pointed it at or threatened anybody with the gun? Are they actively pointing it at someone now?
See, a lot of callers in an attempt to get police there faster will make shit up. Like massively make shit up. That's why you have to keep questioning them and re-asking them previous questions.
I think the dispatchers involved in this need to be fired and legit facing law suits. Not relaying that it looked like a toy gun, and that he was a kid is heinous and negligent. Dispatchers hold a lot of power in any 911 situation and i think they need to be held more accountable. Especially in this case.
Not a troll. I've been around for years. But I don't want to risk being called an asshole because I voice an opinion so I never post. Conversation is impossible with all of you.
Anyway, in reference to the fact that it was a toy gun and not related via dispatch...how do they know it's a toy gun? Where is that information coming from.
Has anyone stated whether or not the training officer told Tamir to drop the gun and show his hands when the cruiser rolled up to him? Tamir raises his shirt and reaches for the gun and pulls it out (it's found in the ground next to him from what I've read). What would cause him to do this? Why wouldn't he leave his toy gun in his waistband when the police pull up? Allow the pat down for weapons to occur and then proceed. Why did he even go to his waistband in the first place when they pulled up?
I guess no one finds this unnerving because he's a kid and that's a toy, right?
From the article above and according to the officer who shot him.
The officers approached the boy in their cruiser, pulling directly up to a park gazebo on snow-covered grass. The car slid, and Loehmann opened the door, yelling “continuously ‘show me your hands’ as loud as I could,” Loehmann said in his statement to the grand jury.
However, remember the video you said you saw and could tell Tamir was pulling the gun. Count the 1-2 seconds between the car rolling up in total chaos and the death of Tamir... do you think Tamir really heard that officer in the chaos and do you think he was possibly grabbing the gun to say, "Hey it's fake." because he's a 12 year old boy, not an adult. He can't reason quickly and didn't think or plan for that situation.
We find it totally unnerving... unnerving that an officer can kill a boy with a toy gun without slowly approaching or yelling first from a further distance and telling them to drop the gun.
Look at the other article I posted in Ohio... same thing, teen (older than Tamir) with a fake gun walked toward police who managed to not kill him and the police also thought the gun was real. You know why we aren't asking for an indictment there, b/c the police did the right thing. With Tamir they DID NOT!
Post by miniroller on Dec 29, 2015 12:30:22 GMT -5
And ajm796: people mentioning the open carry law of Ohio, means even if this were a real gun, what Tamir was doing was not illegal, & definitely not punishable by death. The reason this is so absolutely messed up is because even if he weren't a 12-year-old kid handling a fake gun that looked real, he shouldn't have been shot without warning or giving him a chance to respond to the command to release his weapon!! Right? Do you see this?
Not a troll. I've been around for years. But I don't want to risk being called an asshole because I voice an opinion so I never post. Conversation is impossible with all of you.
Anyway, in reference to the fact that it was a toy gun and not related via dispatch...how do they know it's a toy gun? Where is that information coming from.
Has anyone stated whether or not the training officer told Tamir to drop the gun and show his hands when the cruiser rolled up to him? Tamir raises his shirt and reaches for the gun and pulls it out (it's found in the ground next to him from what I've read). What would cause him to do this? Why wouldn't he leave his toy gun in his waistband when the police pull up? Allow the pat down for weapons to occur and then proceed. Why did he even go to his waistband in the first place when they pulled up?
I guess no one finds this unnerving because he's a kid and that's a toy, right?
So you truly believe that in the 1.5-2 seconds between when the cop car pulled up and Tamir was shot the officers legitimately asked him to put down the gun? Officers just can't roll up to anyone and shoot them in an open carry state. You're the one that's being impossible.
Post by mrsukyankee on Dec 29, 2015 12:37:06 GMT -5
Because even if the kid pulled up his shirt to show off the fake gun, he should still not have been killed. He didn't have the time to 'talk' between the police pulling up and getting shot. No time at all. The police went in to shoot.
Let's stipulate that the officers believed this to be an adult armed with an actual gun. We all understand that. There are some racist fucking bullshit reasons this is true, but it's true. So...moving on.
The officers state that they were yelling for Tamir to drop the gun as they pulled up. with the windows closed. Which they admit he was not in fact holding at the time they were skidding up to him. Not rolled. Skidded. because they decided to drive right up to him at a not inconsiderable speed across a snowy lawn. They state that he reached toward his waistband and they believed he was pulling the gun out as they exited the vehicle.
They pulled still shots from the video that they state shows this, though the experts hired by the family disagree. It looks to them (and my lay persons eyes) like the kid had his hand in the pocket of his sweatshirt and thus couldn't have been reaching into his waistband. His shoulder does come up, which the prosecutor interpreted as starting to pull the gun*, but it could have very well been that he was trying to pull his hands out of his pockets to raise them.
The thing I keep getting hung up on is this - assuming he could hear the cops yelling to drop his weapon with the windows up, and assuming he did actually reach toward his waistband - isn't it just as likely that he was reaching toward the gun to pull it out and drop it? Since that's what they were directing him to do?
And then we go back to the entire setup of this situation. The cops feared they were in danger, and thus their use of deadly force was justified. They feared they were in danger because they were only a few feet away from what they believed to be an armed man. BUT THEY CREATED THAT SITUATION. They took a situation that was not violent and immediately escalated it. They could have stopped the car farther away. The could have given themselves more than 2 seconds to react to the situation. This wasn't an active shooter. There were no hostages. No injuries. No shots fired. There was no reason to come in guns a blazin' and literally skid to a halt across the grass. This didn't have to happen. It just didn't fucking have to happen, and that anybody can watch this video and think, "yep, that's how that should go down. Kid should have known better" is just so damn sad.
*that part just reads weird to me. The prosecutor was basically acting as a defense attorney in front of the grand jury. My understanding of the legal system is such that that is NOT how this is supposed to work.
I know I'm repeating a lot of what was said earlier. I typed that and let it sit for a bit while I stewed and decided to post it anyway. Sorry. BUT GODDAMN.
Everyone keeps saying if it were a real gun it would have been legal. I don't think you guys know how Ohio open carry laws work. Ohio also has laws against "inciting a riot". You can't just walk down the street waving a gun around. The gun needs to be holstered. In fact, this is why concealed carry laws were passed in Ohio - to get around the "inciting a riot" laws.
But if an officer is responding to an active shooter situation, because the call says the suspect was waving the gun around, even if the gun were real and holstered when officers approached the suspect, he would have still been charged with a crime for inciting a riot with the gun.
It's a tragedy that this child is dead due to his own foolish behavior. His parents should have taught him that it is dangerous to wave a toy gun around in public. There are so many people to blame here, including trigger happy police.
Everyone keeps saying if it were a real gun it would have been legal. I don't think you guys know how Ohio open carry laws work. Ohio also has laws against "inciting a riot". You can't just walk down the street waving a gun around. The gun needs to be holstered. In fact, this is why concealed carry laws were passed in Ohio - to get around the "inciting a riot" laws.
But if an officer is responding to an active shooter situation, because the call says the suspect was waving the gun around, even if the gun were real and holstered when officers approached the suspect, he would have still been charged with a crime for inciting a riot with the gun.
It's a tragedy that this child is dead due to his own foolish behavior. His parents should have taught him that it is dangerous to wave a toy gun around in public. There are so many people to blame here, including trigger happy police.
Fuck you. Seriously. A 12 year old kid is not dead because of his parents.
Everyone keeps saying if it were a real gun it would have been legal. I don't think you guys know how Ohio open carry laws work. Ohio also has laws against "inciting a riot". You can't just walk down the street waving a gun around. The gun needs to be holstered. In fact, this is why concealed carry laws were passed in Ohio - to get around the "inciting a riot" laws.
But if an officer is responding to an active shooter situation, because the call says the suspect was waving the gun around, even if the gun were real and holstered when officers approached the suspect, he would have still been charged with a crime for inciting a riot with the gun.
It's a tragedy that this child is dead due to his own foolish behavior. His parents should have taught him that it is dangerous to wave a toy gun around in public. There are so many people to blame here, including trigger happy police.
Yes of course, the immaturity of a child is certainly worth a death sentence. Fuck you.