‘TRAGIC LOSS’

Tamir Rice’s Family Slams ‘Pathetic’ Feds for Refusing to Reopen Civil Rights Probe Into His Death

Last year, Rice’s family began petitioning officials to reconsider the 2020 decision to not press charges against the cop who killed the 12-year-old.

On Friday, the Justice Department formally denied a request to reopen a civil rights investigation into the 2014 death of Tamir Rice. Rice, 12, was playing with a toy gun outdoors when two Cleveland cops pulled up and shot him. The officers had received calls that someone was wielding a gun in the area and shot Rice within two seconds of arriving at the scene. In May 2021, Rice’s family began petitioning officials to reconsider the DOJ’s 2020 decision to not charge the cop who killed Rice, Officer Timothy Loehmann. But in a letter submitted Friday, the head of the Civil Rights Division, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, stood by the 2020 ruling that determined an investigation would not conclude that the officer had committed a federal civil rights violation. She added that the death was a “tragic loss” and “by no means should you view the Department’s 2020 decision as an exoneration of Timothy Loehmann’s actions.” Of the disappointing decision, Samaria Rice, Tamir’s mother, told Buzzfeed News, “I think they’re pitiful and pathetic, and at this point no one is going to get justice when it comes to police shootings in America.”