By Cherranda Smith
Dec 30, 2020
On Tuesday (December 29), the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that two Cleveland, Ohio police officers will not be facing federal charges in the 2014 fatal shooting of 12-year-old
Tamir Rice.
DOJ officials say video footage of the event is too poor quality to definitively determine what happened that day outside of a recreation center.
A statement released by the Department indicates that the officers’ actions weren’t condoned with the decision not to bring federal charges, only that there wasn’t enough conclusive evidence to support prosecution on the grounds of federal criminal civil rights violation.
On November 22, 2014, Tamir was playing with a pellet gun outside when he was fatally shot by Officers
Insufficient Evidence to Bring Federal Charges Against Officers Involved in Tamir Rice Shooting: DOJ
The Justice Department announced Tuesday it will not bring federal criminal charges against two Cleveland police officers in the 2014 killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, saying there was insufficient evidence to proceed with charging the policemen.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement that video of the shooting was of too poor a quality for prosecutors to conclusively establish what had happened and that the evidence in the case was overall insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers acted wilfully to deprive an individual of a federally protected right.
The US Justice Department closed the case and said that there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution.
It insisted that the quality of the video footage of the shooting was too poor to prove conclusively what had happened.
Tamir was shot dead by police officer Timothy Lohemann as he played with a toy gun in a playground after a man drinking beer at a bus stop called the emergency services number to warn that someone was threatening passers-by.
The witness told call handlers that the gun was likely to be a fake and that the person was probably a juvenile, but that information was not passed on to officers.
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