Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire I didn't expect this - death of kid with Airsoft gun ruled a homicide

However, a grand jury has to decide whether to press charges against the cop. If it's a homicide and they know who did it, how can they NOT file charges?

Death of 12-year-old Cleveland boy shot by police ruled a homicide
Published December 12, 2014
Associated Press

CLEVELAND � A 12-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun died from a single shot fired by a rookie police officer, according to an autopsy released Friday.

Tamir Rice was shot in the abdomen and the bullet damaged a major vein and his intestines, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner concluded in labeling the death a homicide.

Tamir was shot outside a city recreation center on Nov. 22 after officers responded to a 911 call about someone with a gun at a playground. Surveillance video released by police shows the boy being shot within 2 seconds of a patrol car stopping near him. He died the next day.

Police have said rookie officer Tim Loehmann believed the boy had a real firearm. They later discovered it was an airsoft gun, which shoots nonlethal plastic projectiles.

Tamir's mother, Samaria Rice, said at a news conference earlier this week her son's friend gave him the pellet gun.

A grand jury will consider whether charges are merited.

The autopsy said Tamir was 5-foot-7 and weighed 195 pounds. The report did not say how long it took officers to provide medical help.

A federal lawsuit filed by the boy's family against the city and police said two officers waited four minutes before anyone provided medical help to Tamir.

The lawsuit also said the two officers acted recklessly when they confronted Tamir in a terrifying manner, driving within feet of him and firing within seconds. Samaria Rice said the officer who fired the fatal shot should be convicted of a crime.

The officer's father has said his son had no other choice because he thought the weapon was real.

Several peaceful protests have taken place since the shooting, which has come at a time when police-involved deaths around the nation have drawn on spotlight on departments and their use of force.

Last week, the U.S. Justice Department released the results of a nearly two-year investigation of Cleveland police that found its officers use excessive and unnecessary force far too often. The report was completed before Tamir's death.

Why not? The definition of homicide is a human death caused by another human

Yeah but he was black.

Toot Toot!

I think a railroad is coming!

Isn't the legal definition of Homicide just that an individual has been killed by another individual.?

I don't think it passes any judgement.

The autopsy said Tamir was 5-foot-7 and weighed 195 pounds.

Pushing 200lbs at 12 years old?

He also had what was easily been mistaken for a real gun. I figured they'd call it justified and that would be the end of it.

Not having a problem seeing the dufis cop going to the big house on that one.

It could be ruled justifiable homicide, in which case the cop walks.

Yeah, every one of these deaths have been homicides, but none have had a grand jury find reasonable cause to believe a crime had been committed. Considering the total lack of time between cop getting out of car and cop shooting, this one may be different.

Google "justifiable homicide".

Yeah but you see, and I am reiterating here, he was black.

Everyone stop and read this, he was black.

Rules, common sense, reasoning, deduction, or critical thought need not apply, he was black for God sakes, BLACK.

I know what it is, I wasn't saying any of the findings up to now were wrong.

Don't think grand juries pass a finding of justifiable homicide, though, do they? They just no bill it.

the friggen driver is most culpable. why the hell would he pull right in on the kid? the passenger had almost zero time to process the situation.

Yep, Barney Fife and Roscoe P. Coltrane together at last. If it was a real thug with a real gun, he could have gotten his partner's head blown off.

He probably didn't realize who it was, or maybe didn't even see him

this one is reality, Cop has split second to make a decision, if gun pointed toward cop he simply had to make a decision, shoot or get shot in his mind, the driver should not have pulled as close, he put the rookie cop at risk.

The 911 operator needs to be charged with accessory to the murder. She was responsible for spooling up the two cops with a misleading radio call which failed to present eyewitness testimony that the kids "gun" was probably "fake" (a toy.)

What do you suppose would or should happen to the 911 operator if he/she was to relay to the cops that the gun was probably fake, the cops went in assuming as much and one of them or worse a bystander got killed, all because the 911 operator gave them information that she had no way of verifying.

These people don't live in the hindsight like we all have the privilege of doing after we read this stuff on the campfire. They make decisions in the hear and now and live with them. Charging someone with murder for not telling the police the gun might be fake is just ridiculous.

The police have to react as though all guns in a situation are real, until proven otherwise:

Police in San Leandro, California, announced they confiscated two AK-pattern rifles during a drug raid that were built with orange-tipped muzzles to make them look like toy or airsoft rifles.

Three other rifles were confiscated from the house along with $45,000 in cash. The house was being used as an illegal marijuana farm.

Three men were arrested in the raid.

Lt. Robert McManus confirmed that the rifles were authentic and not toys.

�The officer is going to be forced to shoot to protect their own life or to protect someone else, regardless if it has the plastic tip on it,� McManus said, implying his department treats all potential firearms as guns no matter how they are painted.

This follows on the heels of a bill proposed by state Sen. Noreen Evans that would regulate toy guns and require them to have paint schemes to differentiate between real and toy guns.

The bill was proposed after shooting death Andy Lopez, 13, in October last year. Lopez was shot and killed by a Erick Gelhaus, a Sonoma County sheriff�s deputy.

If what McManus says is true, this bill will not change how police approach potentially-armed standoffs.