DEPT OF INJUSTICE

DOJ Won’t Bring Charges Against Cop Who Killed 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice

The department declined to bring charges after experts couldn’t clearly determine what Rice was doing in the video of the shooting.

Six years after 12-year-old Tamir Rice was killed by a Cleveland police officer, the Department of Justice announced it won’t be bringing charges against either of the two officers who were present at the time. The decision comes after the investigation was reported to have been closed in October. Officer Timothy Loehmann, who is white, shot Rice, who was Black, while he was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center. The DOJ said there wasn’t sufficient evidence for a federal investigation and that they weren’t confident they could prove that the officers broke the law on purpose. They claimed the video of Rice’s killing doesn’t show whether Rice was reaching for his toy gun or showing his hands as he’d been instructed to do. The DOJ has also declined charges against the officers who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner.