The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that it would not press charges against two Cleveland police officers involved in the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014.
The announcement closes a case that has been frequently cited by supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement to press for police reform.
Rice, an African American boy, was shot and killed by white officer Timothy Loehmann after he and his partner Frank Garmback responded to a 911 call. The caller notified the 911 dispatcher that someone was pointing a gun at passersby outside a Cleveland recreation center. Rice was playing with a pellet gun outside the center, and Loehmann shot and killed Rice shortly after he and Garmback arrived at the scene.
“Although Tamir Rice’s death is tragic, the evidence does not meet these substantial evidentiary requirements,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “In light of this…career federal prosecutors with both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office concluded that this matter is not a prosecutable violation of the federal statutes.”
Loehmann and Garmback said after the shooting that they shouted “multiple commands to [Rice to] show his hands before shooting,” and an Ohio grand jury declined to indict Loehmann. However, Loehmann was subsequently fired from the Cleveland police force.
“I will never forgive them for what they did to my family and myself, and all of the Black and brown Americans that America has stolen their lives,” Samaria Rice, Tamir’s mother, told Cincinnati’s Fox 19 on November 2 of this year. “I can’t understand why I don’t have an indictment on the federal level. The whole America seen what happened to my son, it was an assassination on behalf of law enforcement.”