After the 12-year-old child was gunned down at a playground in Ohio, it took a year for a grand jury to find no wrong doings against the officer who gunned down the child, just 2 seconds after he got on the scene. The officers clearly won that battle – a black kid is dead and the cop that killed the child is set free – but apparently, one Cleveland police officer, Matt Cicero, is not done serving the family of Tamir Rice just yet.
In a totally unnecessary Facebook rant, the Cleveland police officer unloaded his arsenal once again on Tamir Rice’s family, calling Tamir’s mom a “stupid b***h”
‘Tamir rices momma just want money,’ he wrote. ‘Lets make the proper changes……raise your kids not to play with fake guns stupid b***h.
‘All this media because the are not getting what they want…… Again pleeeeze anyone who does not like what I post…..unfriendly me or block me your not worth my time.’
When someone objected to the message, insisting that a child playing with a toy gun “did not become a sold platform for the death penalty” and that the cop responsible should have been charge with negligent homicide, Cicero was quick to respond.
He wrote: “You pull out a gun you get shot. I don’t have time to ask questions and coddle kids that wave guns around.”
Cicero also posted a meme of a man holding up two guns to the camera with the caption ‘Quick, which one is a BB gun? Oops, too late… you’re dead.’
The school police officer, who worked in the same district as Tamir Rice, has since taken down all his social media pages.
Cleveland Metropolitan School District spokeswoman Roseann Canfora confirmed to Raw Story that Cicero had been placed on administrative leave while an investigation was underway.
First of all, Jeb Bush did not know who Tamir Rice was. After the reporter asked him if he thought the grand jury was correct in refusing to bring charges against the two police officers who killed the 12-year-old boy in Ohio, Jeb began his answer saying something about Chicago. The reporter had to tell him that Tamir Rice was killed in Cleveland.
With that out of the way, Jeb continued answering the question. He told the reporter that the grand jury’s failure to indict the officers meant, “the process worked,” and that sometimes when these type of cases are brought, the grand jury often sees that “there’s no there, there” and they usually do the right thing.
Absolutely amazing. This is coming from the man who wants to be president of the United States. And while I’m sure his total ignorance on Tamir Rice’s killing will be welcomed by some Republicans, this ignorance solidifies what many in the minority community already knows – like his brother George, Jeb Bush “doesn’t care about black people.”
“Act like a thug and you’ll be treated like one.” Those are the words of the President of the Police Union in Miami, Javier Ortiz. And in those simple words, Ortiz implied that the 12 year old child who was shot and killed by police in 2014, deserved it. Because, as Ortiz said, Tamir was a thug
And Ortiz wasn’t done yet. He had more to say.
“Mr. Rice wasn’t your neighborhood kid running around with a water gun. He was brandishing and pointing a pellet gun in which the orange tip was removed,” Ortiz told the New Times. “As tragic as the situation is, I support those in law enforcement that had to make a split-second decision in protecting themselves and the community.”
Ortiz has been an outspoken defender of officers in other police shootings, including Darren Wilson, the officer who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Ortiz also attacked Miami Police Chief Manuel Orosa because he called for the prosecution of the New York officers involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner.
Twelve year old Tamir Rice is dead and gone. The little boy was shot and killed by an Ohio police officer in 2014. Today however, over a year after Rice was killed, a grand jury stated that the officer was absolutely correct and within his right to pull up on Tamir Rice and killed the boy within 3 seconds of getting on the scene.
The white police officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice, an African American 12-year-old, will not face criminal charges, it was announced on Monday – more than a year after the shooting in Cleveland.
A grand jury declined to indict officer Timothy Loehmann, who opened fire on Tamir less than two seconds after arriving at a park where the 12-year-old was playing with a toy gun on 22 November 2014. Loehmann’s partner, Frank Garmback, will also face no charges, Cuyahoga county prosecutor Timothy McGinty announced at a press conference.
McGinty argued that Tamir’s death was caused by a “perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day” but there was no evidence of criminal misconduct by police. The two officers believed they were responding to a “potential active shooter situation” and had not been provided with crucial details of a 911 call reporting that Rice was likely a juvenile with a gun that was “probably fake”, McGinty said.
“Had the officers been aware of these qualifiers, the training officer who was driving might have approached the scene with less urgency; lives may not have been put at stake,” McGinty said.
According to a new investigative report, 12 year old Tamir Rice did not have a gun or even a pellet gun in his hand when police pulled up and gunned him down at a recreation center in November 2014.
And the various reports that said Rice was killed 2 to 3 seconds after police arrived on the scene are wrong. According to this new report, the 12 year old boy was killed one second after the police car stopped a few feet away from him.
Tamir Rice did not have enough time to remove his hands from his pockets before being shot, and his hands weren’t visible to the officer, according to the analysis released late Friday night by attorneys for Tamir’s family.
The new report and two others from experts already used by the family are the latest analysis of evidence to be released as a grand jury considerswhether to bring charges against the officers in Tamir’s death. The boy was shot after authorities received a report of a man pointing and waving a gun outside a recreation center in November 2014.
Previous reports concluded that officer Timothy Loehmann shot Tamir within 2 seconds of opening his car door. The new analysis determined it happened even faster, within less than a second, according to the review by California-based shooting reconstruction expert Jesse Wobrock.
Tamir Rice was cut down, killed by Cleveland police before he turned 13 years old. The 12-year-old was shot and killed by police in less than 3 seconds after they encounter the minor in a park. And now, months after they killed the boy, it is being reported the Cleveland police filed charges against Tamir in an apparent attempt to justify killing him.
Cleveland police charged 12-year-old Tamir Rice with “aggravated menacing” and “inducing panic,” according to documents published by the Daily Kos on Wednesday.
The incident report is dated Nov. 29, 2014, a week after Rice was fatally shot by 26-year-old Officer Timothy Loehmann within two seconds of encountering him at a local park. Neither Loehmann nor 46-year-old Officer Frank Garmback, who also responded to the call, administered medical treatment immediately following the shooting.
The document lists a “facsimile firearm” as part of the case narrative. Loehmann killed Rice believing him to be carrying an actual weapon. However, emergency dispatchers were originally told that the Airsoft rifle the boy had with him at the time was “probably fake.” Footage from the scene also shows the officers handcuffing Rice’s sister.
I remember watching the clip below of MSNBC’s interview with the Cleveland police union who kept insisting that the police officer who murdered of 12 year old Tamir Rice was “justified,” and while watching, all these questions and comments started coming to mind as I listened to the unbelievable cops-are-always-right nonsense coming from the cop.
Apparently Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks had the same questions and comments, and he used his platform on YouTube and blasted the cop for his moronic response.
“Just, for Christ’s sake, be a human for a second,” Uygur challenged the man after watching a clip of the MSNBC piece. “And say, ‘We’re so sorry that [a] 12-year-old kid died, man. Obviously we didn’t mean that.’ Is that too hard to say? Is that too hard to say — ‘We didn’t mean to kill your 12-year-old son. We’re so sorry about that.’”
Uygur continued. “You killed him in two seconds — [Rice] didn’t have time to listen to what you said,” Uygur said in response. “This Orwellian prick; we just saw the video, we’ve seen the video a million times. You pull up and you shoot him. You pull up and you shoot him. One-one thousand, two-one thousand and he’s dead.”
He made the news not because he chose to exercise his first Amendment rights to call for justice for Tamir Rice – the 12 year old who was killed by police for playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland park – Andrew Hawkins of the Cleveland Browns made news because he was attacked by the Cleveland police union for exercising those First Amendment rights.
Yesterday, despite being called “pathetic” by the Cleveland police union, Andrew Hawkins continued expressing his first Amendment privileges.
He used his constitutionally protected First Amendment right to speak his mind on the violence exhibited against blacks and other minorities by police, with his choice to wear a t-shirt calling for justice for Tamir. For this, Andrew Hawkins, the wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, was slammed by the police union in Cleveland who called Andrew’s decision to wear the t-shirt “pretty pathetic.”
Well Andrew felt the need to express his feelings a little more that the t-shirt would allow, and on Monday, he called the press together and released this statement.
“I was taught that justice is a right that every American should have. Also justice should be the goal of every American. I think that’s what makes this country. To me, justice means the innocent should be found innocent. It means that those who do wrong should get their due punishment. Ultimately, it means fair treatment. So a call for justice shouldn’t offend or disrespect anybody. A call for justice shouldn’t warrant an apology.
“To clarify, I utterly respect and appreciate every police officer that protects and serves all of us with honesty, integrity and the right way. And I don’t think those kind of officers should be offended by what I did. My mom taught me my entire life to respect law enforcement. I have family, close friends that are incredible police officers and I tell them all the time how they are much braver than me for it. So my wearing a T-shirt wasn’t a stance against every police officer or every police department. My wearing the T-shirt was a stance against wrong individuals doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons to innocent people.
“Unfortunately, my mom also taught me just as there are good police officers, there are some not-so-good police officers that would assume the worst of me without knowing anything about me for reasons I can’t control. She taught me to be careful and be on the lookout for those not-so-good police officers because they could potentially do me harm and most times without consequences. Those are the police officers that should be offended.
“Being a police officer takes bravery. And I understand that they’re put in difficult positions and have to make those snap decisions. As a football player, I know a little bit about snap decisions, obviously on an extremely lesser and non-comparative scale, because when a police officer makes a snap decision, it’s literally a matter of life and death. That’s hard a situation to be in. But if the wrong decision is made, based on pre-conceived notions or the wrong motives, I believe there should be consequence. Because without consequence, naturally the magnitude of the snap decisions is lessened, whether consciously or unconsciously.
“I’m not an activist, in any way, shape or form. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I keep my opinions to myself on most matters. I worked extremely hard to build and keep my reputation especially here in Ohio, and by most accounts I’ve done a solid job of decently building a good name. Before I made the decision to wear the T-shirt, I understood I was putting that reputation in jeopardy to some of those people who wouldn’t necessarily agree with my perspective. I understood there was going to be backlash, and that scared me, honestly. But deep down I felt like it was the right thing to do. If I was to run away from what I felt in my soul was the right thing to do, that would make me a coward, and I can’t live with that. God wouldn’t be able to put me where I am today, as far as I’ve come in life, if I was a coward.
“As you well know, and it’s well documented, I have a 2-year-old little boy. The same 2-year-old little boy that everyone said was cute when I jokingly threw him out of the house earlier this year. That little boy is my entire world. And the No. 1 reason for me wearing the T-shirt was the thought of what happened to Tamir Rice happening to my little Austin scares the living hell out of me. And my heart was broken for the parents of Tamir and John Crawford knowing they had to live that nightmare of a reality.
“So, like I said, I made the conscious decision to wear the T-shirt. I felt like my heart was in the right place. I’m at peace with it and those that disagree with me, this is America, everyone has the right to their first amendment rights. Those who support me, I appreciate your support. But at the same time, support the causes and the people and the injustices that you feel strongly about. Stand up for them. Speak up for them. No matter what it is because that’s what America’s about and that’s what this country was founded on.”
Apparently, professional athletes cannot have an opinion and if they do, they should not make their opinions known.
That is the argument from the President of the Police Union in Cleveland, Jeff Follmer, who denounced Browns’ wide receiver Andrew Hawkins for wearing a “Justice for Tamir Rice” shirt during warm-ups. Follmer called Hawkins “pathetic” for expressing his views.
“He’s an athlete. He’s someone with no facts of the case whatsoever,” Follmer said on Sunday. “He’s disrespecting the police on a job that we had to do and make a split-second decision.”
Follmer demanded an apology from Hawkins and the Browns organization, causing the Browns to issue a statement.
“We have great respect for the Cleveland Police Department and the work that they do to protect and serve our city,” the statement says. “We also respect our players’ rights to project their support and bring awareness to issues that are important to them if done so in a responsible manner.”
Tamir Rice, 12 years old, was gunned down by a Cleveland police officer while holding what turned out to be a toy gun. At the time of the killing, the police officer said that Tamir was asked numerous times to drop his weapon and when he did not, he was shot and killed. The police also said that Tamir was about 20 years old.
But there is a video and according to the video, the 12 year old is seen getting shot less than 3 seconds after a police car arrived on the scene.
At a news conference in Cleveland today, Samaria Rice, mother of the slain 12 year old boy shot to death by police a couple of weeks ago, called for justice for her son and revealed that her daughter was also handcuffed by police after they killed her son Tamir.
Rice said that when she got to the park where her son was shot, she found her 14-year-old daughter, who was also at the park that afternoon playing, handcuffed in the back of a police car. When Rice later reunited with her daughter, the young girl said police officers tackled and handcuffed her once she saw her younger brother lying on the ground, bleeding.
When Samaria arrived and saw her youngest child shot and her daughter in the back of a police car, police officers warned her that if she didn’t calm down, she’d be placed in the police vehicle as well.
The family’s attorney, Benjamin Crump, argued that if there is enough probable cause, “we don’t need to have another grand jury.”
I’m so tired of writing about this crap. I’m sure you are tired of reading about it. None of us are surprised another grand jury didn’t indict a cop. Grand juries indict 99.9 percent of time. The .1 percent of the time they don’t is because a cop is on trial. The entire grand jury system needs to be scrapped. There is simply no need for it. They do exactly what the prosecutors want. If they want an indictment, they hand it down, if they don’t, they vote “no true” bill, whatever the hell that means or meant back in 1787 when maybe the grand jury system was necessary. They are now worthless, chocked with people who don’t think on their own, and just march in lock step with the orders they are given. They are just slaves to their prosecutor masters. It is time for the entire system to go.
In the Eric Garner case we have a video. Much like in the Ray Rice case. Before we had the Rice video many people were saying his punching out his fiancee wasn’t a big deal. After the video many wanted to hang Rice. Same case, same offense, but there was video. In the Michael Brown case there is no video. Imagine the difference if there had been. Now I don’t mean a difference in the outcome of the grand jury. We have all seen Eric Garner choked to death. It’s clear to see and it didn’t make a difference. Therefore there is data now that tells us police wearing cameras will not make much of a difference. Yes like with Garner, there would be a difference with public opinion but not where it counts most, in the justice system. Because a grand jury simply will not indict a police officer.
We all saw what happened. There really is no excuse to not get an indictment for probable cause. Which brings up another issue. An issue which is so glaringly unfair, such an obvious conflict of interest that the fact it had not been remedied decades ago proves that our justice system is not the best in the world. People can scream and yell about how it’s the best as much as they want, just like they scream and yell that everything in this country is the best, it still doesn’t make it a fact. In this case I’m talking about having an ordinary prosecutor take cases involving police shootings or misconduct. The same prosecutors who are on the side of the police, who work with them daily and need them to make their cases. The same prosecutors who are buddy buddy with cops, who go out and drink with them and socialize with them. This is the greatest injustice of all injustices. Any case which involves law enforcement needs to be assigned immediately to a special prosecutor that has NO connection with the cops involved. If the federal government needs to be involved then so be it. Any country that is serious about its judicial system being the best and most fair would have had this in place already. It’s that simple.
I have to love those right wingers who are now feigning bewilderment at the Garner case. Because there is a video they cannot dispute. Well, most of them. I’m not talking about the disgusting Rudy Giuliani or abhorrent Peter King. They both have enough white ethnic cop apologists (some who are indeed racists) among their followers and constituents that they can be as grotesque as they want with no consequences. The others are, all of a sudden, shocked and amazed that a grand jury didn’t indict. As though this was the first injustice ever. Even though we just had one before this. Of course they still won’t admit any kind of racism was involved. You see it’s all just a coincidence that these are white cops killing blacks, time after time.
Timothy Loehmann, the cop in Cleveland who killed 12 year old Tamir Rice was rejected by the NYPD. The same department that allowed Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who killed Eric Garner, (and who already had one civil case against him settled for tens of thousands of dollars), onto the force, rejected this guy. That’s how bad he is. He was also thrown off a previous police force due to emotional and other issues. He has been reported to have said that he wanted to join the Cleveland police department because he wanted “action.” Action? I thought cops just wanted to go home at night? Oh, and by the way, citizens deserve to go home at night as well. Even more so actually because they aren’t willingly taking a job that can be dangerous and getting money and a pension for it. But this cop was obviously nuts, so why was he hired? Because they never checked into his background. Disgraceful. And the police unions, willing to defend everything and anything a bad cop might do, make this liberal want to hate unions.
Police departments not checking backgrounds before they hire. Cops with no ability to relate on a human, emotional level to another person. When a child puts a chokehold on another, when they are just doing horseplay, and the other child screams or says they can’t breathe, the other child releases. Why? Because human nature kicks in and makes them care about the other kid, to understand that causing distress is bad and wrong. But our cops seem to lack this most basic human ability. Time after time. Whether it’s someone with their hands up or someone who has already been shot two or three times, or a child with a toy gun, or a guy gasping for air, saying 11 times, “I can’t breathe.” Several cops just stood around while Garner was choked to death, both during and after the act.
Too often these cops have no emotional or ethical conscience. There is something sociopathic about it and that’s frightening. Not only do we need police departments to do the BASIC operations of checking backgrounds but we also need better psychological screenings or people wanting to be cops. We need police officers with true concern for the lives and well being of the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect. Not just the old deli owner who serves them lunch, that’s easy, but the people they encounter daily who might be breaking the law as well. That the lives of these people are as important as their own. That they have families they want to go home to as well.
The mentality of the warrior cop must be expunged from the police force. It must be replaced by the human cop.
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