Showing posts with label Cleveland Police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cleveland Police. Show all posts

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Officer who murdered Tamir Rice withdraws application to small police department in Ohio

The police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland four years ago has withdrawn his application to a police department in eastern Ohio, CNN affiliate WTOV-TV reported, citing the department's police chief.

Timothy Loehmann was hired by the police department in Bellaire, a small town on the Ohio River, about 65 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. Bellaire Police Chief Richard "Dick" Flanagan told WTOV on Wednesday that Loehmann called him saying he was "rescinding his application here at the Bellaire Police Department."

"I had accepted his withdrawal from the Bellaire Police Department," Flanagan said. "He proceeded to tell me that he wanted to pursue the legal end of what's going on there in Cleveland and he just doesn't have the time to travel back and forth."

Flanagan said Loehmann was never sworn in and was still in the training process.

"Everyone assumes he was automatically hired -- no, there is a process," he said. "He did not receive one dime. He was not on the schedule."

The announcement of Loehmann's hiring caused an intense reaction from the community, WTOV reported. Flanagan said that at one point, the department received more than 200 calls between 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. "Our own citizens here in town were not able to get police, EMS or fire service because they couldn't get through anywhere," he said.

While Flanagan originally said that everyone deserved a second chance and that he stood behind the hiring of Loehmann, he told WTOV on Wednesday that he believes the withdrawal is personal and he supports the decision.

"I think he did the right thing by stepping down, not putting the citizens here in town in jeopardy," he said. "In this job you have to make split-second decisions, you have to see things you don't want to see, you have to do things you don't want to do, you have to say things you don't want to say. We're not supermen -- we just wear a uniform and enforce the laws."

[SOURCE: CNN]

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Officer who shot Tamir Rice fired but not for shooting Tamir

Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, was fired Tuesday -- not for the shooting, but because investigators found he wasn't truthful about his employment history when he applied for the job, officials said.

The officer who was with Loehmann, Frank Garmback, will be suspended for 10 days because he violated tactical rules relating to how he drove to the scene that day, the city's public safety director and the police chief said.

An Ohio grand jury declined to criminally charge the officers in 2015.

None of the rule violations announced by Public Safety Director Michael McGrath and Chief Calvin Williams directly related to Loehmann shooting Rice outside a recreation center as the boy held a toy gun on November 22, 2014.

"After over two years of investigation by our agency, the county prosecutor's office (and) the sheriff's department, I think we've come to what we consider a fair conclusion to this process," Williams said. Rice's mother called the actions against Loehmann and Garmback "deeply disappointing."

"I am relieved Loehmann has been fired because he should never have been a police officer in the first place -- but he should have been fired for shooting my son in less than one second, not just for lying on his application," a statement from Samaria Rice read.

"And Garmback should be fired, too, for his role in pulling up too close to Tamir," Samaria Rice said. "As we continue to grieve for Tamir, I hope this is a call for all of us to build stronger communities together."

[SOURCE: CNN]

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Cleveland police dispatcher in Tamir Rice shooting suspended 8 days


A Cleveland police dispatcher was suspended for eight days for failing to warn officers in the 2014 shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice that a 911 caller had described the scene as probably a child with a fake gun, the boy's family lawyer said on Wednesday.
Reports of the suspension published in Cleveland on Tuesday led to criticism of authorities on social media under the Twitter hashtag #TamirRice, including "8 days suspension? How pathetic" and "the 911 dispatcher whose words lead to the terrible death of tamir rice, an INNOCENT 12 year old, should be FIRED, not simply suspended."
The shooting of the black child, who was playing with a replica gun that fired plastic pellets, by two white police officers was one of several that fueled scrutiny of police use of deadly force across the United States, particularly against minorities.
The family's lawyer Subodh Chandra said the dispatcher, Constance Hollinger, also received a disciplinary letter after a 10-month investigation that ended in February. An off-duty officer at the scene, William Cunningham II, was suspended for two days without pay.
Samaria Rice, Tamir's mother, has urged that anyone involved in the shooting be fired and Chandra said the mother considered Hollinger's eight day suspension without pay “unacceptable.”
Chandra publicly released a March 6 letter about the city's decision on Tuesday evening.
City and police union officials confirmed the letter's legitimacy.
The attorney for Hollinger, Keith Wolgamuth, could not be reached to comment.

Read more: Cleveland police dispatcher in Tamir Rice shooting suspended 8 days


Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Tamir Rice Shooting Death: Activists Try Rare Move to Force Arrest of Cops

Cleveland activists made an unusual legal maneuver Tuesday aimed at forcing the arrest of two officers involved in the shooting death of 12-year-old boy Tamir Rice last year.

Saying they were losing confidence in the grand jury process, the activists instead asked a judge to order the arrests of the officers.

The move, known as an "affidavit of person having knowledge of offense," centers on a widely distributed security camera footage of the Nov. 22 shooting, that shows two officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, responding to a recreation center playground where Rice was playing with a pellet gun. Within two seconds of stopping, Loehmann, a rookie officer, shot him. Tamir died the next day.

Read more: Tamir Rice Shooting Death: Activists Try Rare Move to Force Arrest of Cops

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Cleveland Police also killed Tanisha Anderson

We have all seen the horrifying video of what Cleveland Police did to Tamir Rice , but how many of us have heard the story of Tanisha Anderson who was killed by the Cleveland Police back in November 2014?

A 37-year-old schizophrenic woman died after police slammed her to the pavement outside her family's home, her brother said.

Tanisha Anderson was pronounced dead at Cleveland Clinic early Thursday after an altercation with officers nearly two hours earlier on the 1300 block of Ansel Road.

They killed my sister," her 40-year-old brother Joell Anderson said with welling eyes in his living room Thursday night. "I watched it."

Officers were called to the home after a family member reported that Anderson was disturbing the peace.

Patrolmen had lengthy discussions with Tanisha Anderson and members of her family. Everyone agreed she should undergo an evaluation at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center, police said.

The official police account of what happened next is at odds with what several members of Tanisha Anderson's family said they witnessed.

Read more: Cleveland woman with mental illness died after police used takedown move, brother says