Posted on 12/12/2014 10:59:03 AM PST by Citizen Zed
The death of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy fatally shot by police in November has been formally ruled a homicide, according to a county autopsy report released on Friday that found he was struck once in the abdomen.
Tamir Rice, who was black, was shot on Nov. 22 by a white police officer responding to a call of a suspect waving a handgun around in a Cleveland park. The weapon turned out to be a replica that typically fires plastic pellets. The sixth-grader died the next day.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's autopsy report said Rice sustained a single wound to the left side of his abdomen that traveled from front to back and lodged in his pelvis.
The shooting came at a time of heightened national scrutiny of police use of force and two days before a grand jury declined to indict a white police officer in the Aug. 9 fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Rice was shot less than two seconds after the police car pulled up beside him in the park, police have said. They also released a security video of Rice in the park before and during the shooting.
Rice was 5 feet 7 inches tall and 195 pounds, according to the autopsy report.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.reuters.com ...
Thank you for pointing that out
“Watch the video.”
yes- the kid was pointing the gun at people, and pointing it up and down the street. Hence the 911 call, someone waving a gun around.
When the kid saw the police car approaching, he picked up the gun, stuffed it in his pants, and walked toward the car. When the car arrived, the cop started to exit, then the kid pulls the gun out of his waistband. He was maybe 4, maybe 6 feet away.
The cop responded to this by drawing and firing. An awful thing and an outcome I’m sure the kid did not anticipate, he probably thought it would be funny.
Yep.
I saw that video. The cop is in the same class with the cop who shoots a motorist before he gets close enough to even see where the hands are, or shoots a woman in DC because she is fleeing with her kids in her car. The rule is don’t shoot a citizen unless there is the faintest shred of an excuse that can be claimed. Then shoot whom you will. It’s worse for dogs. For them no reason or excuse is needed other than it is a dog and visible.
That IS big for a 12 year old. He outweighs me by 20lbs, I’m just 4 inches taller, and I’m 26 years older than he is!
Well, DUH! It IS a homocide. The question is whether it was justified or not.
Why would a cop approach to within 4 feet of someone who may be armed and dangerous. If someone has a handgun it is best to stay 25 yards away, and stay behind your car. That’s a tough shot for the average civilian. Four feet is NOT.
They busted logic and ended killing a child.
Decisions, decisions:
Roll up close enough to the person with the reported gun to potentially intimidate him and keep him from attacking civilians, or pull up far enough away to reduce his chance of hitting the cops if he shoots at them but reduce the chance of responding in time if he shoots at someone else.
Shoot when a suspicious kid who hid the object of interest in his waistband pulls the gun-like object from his waistband, after being warned by police, or wait and see what he decides to do with that gun-like object when two police lives and multiple civilian lives may be at risk. How much time do the police have if the object reported as a gun and being treated as a gun turns out to be a gun and the suspect decides to shoot?
Decisions are tough things, especially when there is little time. Whether the shooting was criminal is obvious - it was not. Whether the actions were good police work is a decision for the law enforcement chain of command, not for those of us who don’t have all the facts.
In most places if the fake weapon is sufficiently real looking, i.e. enough so that the victim believes it is a real gun, then it’s armed robbery with a gun legally. Which is logical IMO.
Tamir Rice, who was black,
EVERYTIME! without fail...
wheres the unarmed word??
Unarmed Black Infant ?
That's the kind of rhetoric that the press eats up, and repeats; getting the natives all excited.
Benny Benjamin Crump yes thats Him!!
No, it was a homocide, all homocide means is the death was caused by the actions of another human being.
Homocide and Murder are not interchangeable.
If it was your son, you’d be pretty excited. Maybe to you it’s ok because he was black?
The video I saw had the image of the boy blurred from a distance. Also the cop car was blocking the view. It is possible the cops mistook the boy with a toy for a man with a gun ... especially if the boy’s reaction to them appeared threatening.
After Ferguson I am hesitant to believe any witness who speaks to the news right away. That said I have seen no reports that the kid pointed the gun at the cops, only that he lifted his shirt. The choppy nature of the video makes it hard to be certain but in one frame the kid is pulling up his shirt and the cop already has his gun out and in the next frame the kid is buckling from being shot. There is some ambiguity but to me it looked pretty bad for the cop.
This article about the incident is interesting:
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/12/tamir_rice_killing_caused_by_c.html
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