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Cleveland Officer Will Not Face Charges in Tamir Rice Shooting Death
nytimes.com ^ | 12/28/2015 | MITCH SMITH

Posted on 12/28/2015 11:38:53 AM PST by rktman

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To: HamiltonJay

Did his mom have custody?

It wasn’t a “toy” gun. It was an Airsoft Pellet Gun, crafted to look very real.

Not sold to children, not a toy.

That having been said, yes it is sad.


41 posted on 12/28/2015 2:43:00 PM PST by Bodleian_Girl
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To: rktman

No surprise with this outcome. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. Hummmmm, think I’ll write a song.


42 posted on 12/28/2015 2:47:16 PM PST by WyCoKsRepublican
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To: HamiltonJay

Either you haven’t been reading the news for the past 5+ years, or you’re in denial.


43 posted on 12/28/2015 2:49:12 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: HamiltonJay

“The man, who relayed to a police dispatcher that the gun was “probably fake,” told investigators he called 911 after seeing Tamir pull the gun out of his waistband and point it at a woman’s face.”

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/06/911_caller_was_frightened_tami.html


44 posted on 12/28/2015 2:49:17 PM PST by Bodleian_Girl
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To: Bodleian_Girl

Thank you, BG.


45 posted on 12/28/2015 2:51:24 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: HamiltonJay

I think it is unspeakable that a cop killed this kid! I grew up playing “war” and “cops and robbers” with a sawed off 12 ga Iver Johnson shot gun. My buddies all had Daisy bb guns, pistols or rifles or .22s. One guy had an SK42 luger his dad brought back from the war. Nobody, nobody, including the cops, thought we were using loaded guns. We were kids playing, that’s all.

This was a tragedy fo the first order!


46 posted on 12/28/2015 3:17:21 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen and you, O death, are annihilated!)
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To: rktman

total nonsense...years ago the cops KNEW that the kids had play guns, in case you haven’t noticed, we live in different times and nowadays it is just as likely, even more so, that the guns are real and will be used against authorities....no education, no fathers in the home, on welfare, no values whatsoever, haven’t been near a church in their lives, and taught that they are ten feet tall and bulletproof....they aren’t.


47 posted on 12/28/2015 3:23:07 PM PST by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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To: HamiltonJay
If a child playing with a toy gun being killed triggers this kind of cynicism from you, I have to wonder about your upbringing.

Toy guns nowadays have bright orange tips so that noone will mistake them for real guns. The kids gun had the orange tip removed thus the officer had reason to believe it was real. The kid was large and could easily have been mistaken for an adult.

Very sad situation, but certainly understandable.

48 posted on 12/28/2015 3:30:31 PM PST by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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To: HamiltonJay
The 911 call that I heard, made by a black male, said that this person was pointing a gun at people and scaring them and that it "might" be a toy, obviously meaning that it "might not" be a toy.

So many are cynical because we've been slapped by reality, watching the "parents" of thugs profit handsomely on the fake "outrage" over "injustce" and "racism", alll the while fomenting violence and racism towards innocent Whites and police while ignoring the far more prolific black on White violence.

49 posted on 12/28/2015 3:39:37 PM PST by Eagles6 ( Valley Forge Redux. If not now, when? If not here, where? If not us then who?)
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To: HamiltonJay

Nits become lice.


50 posted on 12/28/2015 3:58:35 PM PST by Rannug ("all enemies, foreign and : domestic")
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To: rktman

They should have been charged


51 posted on 12/28/2015 4:05:16 PM PST by pas
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To: HamiltonJay

I think they do. They drove out jumped out and fired. They deserve to be charged.


52 posted on 12/28/2015 4:08:04 PM PST by pas
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To: pas

Uh, no. The actions of the officer who shot the kid was JUSTIFIED in that he was placed into a position by the DRIVER which allowed virtually no time for adequate decision making in a possible armed suspect situation. If any charges were to be brought it might have been against the officer driving but even that might have been difficult to pursue especially if poor situational training was the reason for the fatal action.


53 posted on 12/28/2015 4:36:06 PM PST by yadent
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To: midcop402

This is the opinion of my sibling who has been an officer for 24 years, a training officer for the last 9 years and also the opinion of at least a dozen other officers whom I have known and worked with for several years. The kid died needlessly.


54 posted on 12/28/2015 4:41:05 PM PST by yadent
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To: yadent

Yes, the training officer used truly awful tactics here, and put his partner in a no-win situation. The “toy” that this kid had was an Airsoft replica, and with split second timing, I’d dare even the most Libertarian FReeper to distinguish that from a real gun.

That said, the person who put Tamir Rice in the no-win situation was his mother. Watch the video: Tamir repeatedly points the realistic-looking simulation at people, and spent the whole afternoon, unsupervised, scaring people in a public park. That’s the proximate cause of this foolish and tragic loss of life.


55 posted on 12/28/2015 4:41:10 PM PST by absalom01 (You should do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, and you should never wish to do less.)
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To: absalom01

Yes, kids do dumb kid things including scaring people. However NO ONE should die due to poor police tactics......NO ONE. BTW. that is the opinion of hundreds of good officers I have had the pleasure to work with and befriend over 25+ years.


56 posted on 12/28/2015 4:51:22 PM PST by yadent
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To: terycarl

I have a bb pistol that looks exactly like a Colt Mustang II. If I had it at a distance, it would be nearly impossible to ID as a bb gun. Works on vicious bunny wabbits though.


57 posted on 12/28/2015 6:04:53 PM PST by rktman (Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?!)
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To: HamiltonJay
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.

Video on the news today shows this little 170 pound 12 year old brandishing a fake gun that can not be distinguished from a real gun at least from the pictures that the PD was showing.

58 posted on 12/29/2015 8:17:41 AM PST by itsahoot (Anyone receiving a Woo! Woo! for President has never won anything after the award.)
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To: OldSmaj

Yes, your memory is correct. This was a failure of the adults, not the child.

This is a tragic death, and it should not have happened, it was handled incorrectly by the dispatcher, and the police responding.

At the time the cops arrived the child was sitting on a picnic table in a pavilion if I recall, the car whizzes up with no more than 10 feet, the cops get out screaming at the kid and he’s shot in the stomach 2 seconds later.

There are no other people in frame when the cops arrive, the boy is not threatening anyone when the cops arrive, they responded completely incorrectly, even if this person had been an honest threat. It was poorly handled all the way around.

With that said, and as I have said many times, I don’t think the cops should have been charged with murder, and I think the DA honestly protected the cops by going with such a heavy charge. This is pretty typical in cases where a cop screws up, to keep the cop from facing jail, the DA’s office will go for a charge that is too heavy and of course fail to get the grand jury to go for it. Instead of going for a lesser charge that they most likely could get a grand jury to indict on.

I am just tired of watching the drek here try to blame a 12 year old kid for his death, when he was not doing anything that nearly any child would do. I have absolutely no issues with a punk getting his just deserts, but the attempt by some here to try to portray this tragic situation as that is disgusting.


59 posted on 12/29/2015 9:35:21 AM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: Bodleian_Girl

It was in his pants when he was shot. The realism of the gun is not why he was shot, he was shot because a whole lot of adults failed that day.

This attempt to blame the child for his death by some here is drek and insanity.


60 posted on 12/29/2015 9:54:59 AM PST by HamiltonJay
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