A grand jury cleared Monday white officer Timothy Loehmann and his partner from the November 2014 shooting that killed 12-year-old, African-American Tamir Rice.
In a report by the New York Times, the Cleveland patrolman shot the boy, who was holding a pellet gun. The grand jury declined to indict the police officers for lack of evidence. This adds to the increasing national outrage over white officers killing blacks.
Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty announced the decision that the grand jurors should not charge the officers for killing the boy outside a recreation center. He said that the death of the child was a "perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications."
"We explained to Tamir Rice's mother that even in a situation as tragic as the death of her son, the state must be able to show that the police acted outside their constitutional boundaries," said McGinty in a report by the Business Insider. "The evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police."
According to The Guardian, Tamir's family said in a statement that they were saddened by the outcome, but they were not surprised. They said that it was clear that McGinty was manipulating the process to make sure the grand jury will vote against indictment.
The two officers who shot the boy dead thought they were responding to a shooter situation. McGinty said that the officers were not given enough information by the 911 call that the boy was a juvenile and was probably holding a fake gun.
Meanwhile, the attorney to Tamir's family, Subidh Chandra said they were not informed about the decision beforehand and only learned about it during a public statement declared by the county prosecutor's office.
This decision came just a couple of days after a grand jury in Missouri also cleared police officers in Ferguson who shot an unarmed black 18-year-old. This has caused protest in New York, North Charleston, Baltimore, and other cities.
