Posted on 12/28/2015 11:38:53 AM PST by rktman
The Cleveland police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice last year will not face state criminal charges, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office announced Monday.
The decision by grand jurors was the end of a lengthy investigation that was criticized by Tamir’s family and by activists, who called the shooting senseless and said the officer should have been charged with murder months ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sadly Tamir did do one thing kids do...he -or a friend- took the orange cap off the air soft gun. Kids throw common sense out the window. Our son wanted to do the same when he was younger as indeed “his friends had done it too”. My husband explained in clear terms why he could not do it, and the ramifications from us if he did.
I agree with your statement. The kid was not being a threat. The cops should have kept their distance and analyzed the situation.
I don’t think it would have mattered, the gun was in his pants when he was shot, the orange cap would not have been visible.
The issue here, is the cops were given bad information which put them in a frame of reference which lead to this tragedy.
The cops don’t deserve to face murder charges over this, though clearly the system messed up... critical information did not reach them which is why they reacted the way they did. Reacting to a call of someone waving around a gun is a big different place mentally and how to react to it than yea, I think a kid is playing with a toy gun.
The real issue is when did our society become so scared that a child playing with a toy gun results in a call to the cops in the first place? Seriously? You see a child playing with a toy gun, you believe it to be a toy gun, and you call the cops?
But to try to blame the child for their death in this situation? At its best, its insanity, at its worst its flagrant racism.
I tend to agree with your sentiment, however the lack of proper training or neglect of his training allowed the driving officer to place his vehicle, with his partner, within a few FEET of a potentially armed suspect. Irregardless of the information the officers received, no way should an officer have willingly place themselves in such a situation. They should have been several YARDS away, with weapons drawn, shouting commands/instructions at the suspect. A procedural nightmare with disastrous consequences.
Don’t think for one minute I believe the cops handled any of this right, they didn’t... but a murder charge? Not likely to have ever happened, let alone gotten a conviction. The cops will face consequences, no doubt for this, civil court will not be kind... unless the city comes to some sort of agreement with the family to prevent it.
I just am not going to sit by and listen to folks try to blame a 12 year old child playing with a gun as any child does is somehow guilty for his own death.
Absolutely.
So when do the riots start? Screw justice and the legal system, he be guilty in the eyes of BLM.
I agree and thanks to the two of you for keeping this conversation civil however I do have a couple of questions, like 1. why was the orange cap removed, 2. why was this officer who was fired from another police job allowed to be on the force for he was deemed unfit, and 3. why did he pull up so close near the person instead of giving himself distance.
Long story short I sense a civil suit and rightfully so.
“This is not a case where some low life thug was terrorizing or engaging in criminal behavior, this was a boy playing with a toy gun who got killed by police for doing what kids do.”
I have umarex co2 bb guns to practice. They are essentially replica guns, one a walther ppq, one a glock and the other a browning Hi power. They all look exactly like their real gun counterparts except they use co2 and fire bbs. They are indistinguishable from their real counterparts. If you pointed one of these at a police officer, they like everyone else would think it a real firearm. If you point one of the ‘toys’ at an officer you should count on being shot.
This may have been a boy playing with a toy, but his parents failed horridly and utterly at educating their son regarding his ‘toy’. My sons were taught gun safety rules for their bb guns and airsoft. They would not go through a public park menacing others pointing them at others for fun. They would obey police commands and would not point their “toy” at police.
Can’t say why, but given the gun was in his pants when he was shot, even if it had an orange cap it would not have changed the outcome.
The cops and city will face civil case, and lose, there is little doubt the system and cops screwed up here, but murder charges weren’t appropriate.
I 100% agree with you, bad situation all around and the PO should not have been hired as well, a suit is appropriate.
Here’s my stupid question:
Howcome our esteemed lawmakers don’t pass a law outlawing toy guns that are so realistic as to be mistaken for the real thing?
Require the entire “gun” to be yellow or bright orange or stripey all over, so that anybody a block away could see it’s a toy. Problem solved.
It’s already been proven the orange tips are too easy to remove, and children die as a result.
When I was a kid we had water pistols that only came in day-glo colors.
When did they start making black ones?
Methinks the NRA would support “common sense toy gun control.”
Please don’t think I am saying Tamir deserved this. We only warned our son because of this exact situation. But you are right that, given the proximity of the police to Tamir when the shooting happened, the cap -or lack therof-may not have been determined.
The gun was in his pants when he was shot, he was shot in 2 seconds, to claim the lifelikeness of the gun was a major component is dubious at best.
Even the person who called the cops originally state to the operator that she believe the gun was a toy.
Your sons may have been taught lots of things, but I guarantee you, unless you are in complete denial that your children did things against your teaching and training when you were not around. I have worked with kids in various ways my entire life, and I routinely see them doing things I know their parents teach them not to do, and I know they know not to do.. if you think children always do what they are taught and told, you really don’t know much about kids.
I don’t care how well taught a child is, if you take a child, and have a car pull up and slam on its brakes feet from you, and have 2 adult cops get out guns drawn and screaming at that child, they are not going to react like you taught them, 2 seconds after this happens this child has a bullet in its stomach and is dead within 24 hours.
To try to write this off as its the child’s fault, or the parents fault, is mindless blame the victim. I can tell you if you put any child in a situation like what happened to this kid, a cop car pulling just feed from him, and two cops pointing guns at him and shouting at him, in those first 2 seconds he’s not likely to be on the ground as they are directing him, they are going to have no idea how to handle that no matter how well trained they are.
Have some adults on here really forgotten what it is to be a kid? Even their own experiences? No way a 12 year old is going to process a car screeching up just feet away from them with adults screaming at them and just comply within in 2 seconds, most adults can’t even manage that.
And for the record, the kid never pointed anything at the police, the “gun” was in his pants when he was shot, so get the facts right. The kid never got the gun out of his pants, the cops shot him. So please stop with that nonsense.
I believe the officer who shot RESIGNED from another department due to an incident during a firearms training episode. As for the cap, kids are kids and do dumb kid things. This whole incident could have been avoided if the driving officer had allowed several yards of confronting distance rather than a few feet. That action alone could have prevented this sad scenario. A civil suit is indeed warranted and in my opinion the officer driving should be fired.
I followed this very loosely, but I seem to remember a video, don't know the origin of it...but it showed the child standing near some sort of park pavilion with the gun in his hand.
I may very possibly be mixing incidents...there have been so many of them, but I also remember something to the effect that the caller very specifically said it was a toy, but that was not relayed to the cop.
Can anyone find any reference to the video...if it exists and pertains to this incident?
I have not been able to, thus far.
I do not blame the child for his death.
I blame the poor "shoot/don't shoot" training of the officer, I blame the situation that causes so many officers to see an immediate threat in a skin color, but I also blame the thugs and gang bangers for making the skin color a threat.
We have a dire situation.
It cannot be solved by the likes of Barky, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and leech-lawyers throwing the race card out every time something, anything happens.
I have no solution.
This is exactly what I have said all along. The driver, in this case the training officer, put the passenger officer in a very bad situation. My initial assessment is that the training officer should be fired. I am glad I am not alone in this assessment.
When I was a kid no one called the police when we played with real guns. Come to think of it most people didn't have phone when I was a kid. :)
And you don't think thugs could paint their real gun to matvh.
Better yet how about teaching our kids the proper way to play and how to be respectful of authority.
Don't you have a lawsuit to file some place?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.