Tamir Rice killing: officials say 'majority' of investigation is complete

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/12/tamir-rice-police-killing-investigation-cleveland

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The investigation into the police killing of unarmed 12-year-old Tamir Rice is almost complete, the Cuyahoga County sheriff Clifford Pinkney announced on Tuesday.

Pinkney’s department took over the investigation of Rice’s death from the Cleveland police department in January.

The press briefing did not provide any new details or even an estimate of when the investigation might be completed.

“And while it would be politically expedient to impose an arbitrary deadline for the sake of integrity of the investigation, I am not willing to do that,” Pinkney said. “Of course, that does not mean this investigation should drag out beyond what is reasonable.”

This did not sit well with some of Rice’s family members, who had expected at least some explanation from the county sheriff as to why the investigation was taking so long.

“That was an update?” said Latonya Goldsby, Tamir Rice’s cousin, after the briefing. “Really?”

Tamir Rice was shot and killed on 22 November while walking through a Cleveland city park with a toy gun. The gun did not have the orange cap on the end of the barrel indicating it was not real. But after receiving a 9/11 report that a male was “pointing a gun at people” in the park, two Cleveland police officers pulled into the park in their squad car and shot the 12-year-old. The 911 caller had said the gun was “probably fake”, and it remains unclear whether the dispatcher shared that information with the police.

A video of the shooting shows the police car drive up to Rice’s location in the park. Police officer Timothy Loehmann is seen shooting Rice from roughly 10ft away, less than two seconds after arriving at the scene.

In the five-minute press conference, Pinkney, whose department has been charged with determining if the 12-year-old’s death was criminal police misconduct of justifiable homicide, said that his investigators have been reviewing thousands of documents, conducted numerous interviews and used 3D imaging technology to examine the scene of the shooting. He said that only a few more witnesses need to be interviewed.

Goldsby said the family did not even know about the sheriff’s media event until they saw news reports online this morning. “No one called us to let us know this was going to take place,” she said. “I feel so disgusted. I am asking the mayor and the sheriff to show us some transparency. They have not shown any compassion for our family.”

Rice’s family has been critical of the handling of the case, given that prosecutors in Baltimore and North Charleston, South Carolina, completed investigations and filed criminal charges against police officers involved in deaths from excessive police force within weeks of the incidences. “Everything is right there on tape, and we still have no answers six months later,” Goldsby said.

Rice’s family has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city. In April, Loehmann and his partner Frank Garmback asked a judge to halt the family’s suit until the sheriff’s department concludes its investigation.

Rice’s body has not yet been laid to rest, in case an additional medical examination is needed for the ongoing investigation, family attorney Walter Madison said in court documents asking a judge not to grant the stay.

In a scathing December report (just weeks after Tamir Rice’s death), the US Justice Department said that the Cleveland police department “engaged in a pattern of using excessive force in violation of citizen’s constitutional rights”.