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| Tamir Rice, 12, only moments before being shot by Cleveland Police |
Video Shows Cleveland Officer Shot Boy in 2 Seconds - NYTimes.com
A police officer who shot and killed a 12-year-old boy outside a Cleveland recreation center fired within two seconds after the patrol car he was riding in pulled up next to the boy, a video released on Wednesday by the Cleveland police showed.
The video, which was made public at the request of the boy’s family, showed the boy, Tamir Rice, walking in the park pointing what resembled a weapon on Saturday before the officer fatally shot him. The police said the officer yelled at Tamir three times to show his hands, but the boy instead reached to his waistband for the object, which turned out to be a fake gun.
This story is already taking on a life of its own. The fact is Tamir knew his gun looked real, and if Tamir did not know the consequences of waving a "replica" gun that looked real when police officers approach, that is the fault of whomever raised him and allowed him to play with guns. A replica gun looks exactly like a real gun and we would have a lot of dead officers if they had to take the time to ask every time they saw a "child" playing with one. Unfortunately, more than a few kids and adults have lost their lives wielding replica guns.
“This is not an effort to exonerate,” Deputy Chief Edward Tomba of the Cleveland Police Department said of the video at a news conference on Wednesday. “It’s not an effort to show the public that anybody [sic] did anything wrong. This is an obvious tragic event where a young member of our community lost their life. We’ve got two officers that were out there protecting the public that just had to, you know, do something that nobody wants to do.”More on the Tamir Rice Story
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