Activists Move to Get Cops Who Shot Tamir Rice Arrested
Comes a week after the investigation was handed over to prosecutors.
— -- A group of Cleveland activists announced today that they will file a number of citizens' affidavits to seek arrest warrants in the police shooting death of Tamir Rice.
The affidavits that the group of civil rights leaders, clergy members and activists are seeking will, in theory, call for a municipal court judge to issue arrest warrants for the two officers involved in the shooting.
The 12-year-old was fatally shot by Cleveland police officers in November. Just last week, the investigation was handed over to prosecutors, who are expected to convene a grand jury.
"I'm not happy about having to do this as an American citizen. I wish we could depend on our criminal justice system to do what is right," the Rev. R. A. Vernon, the senior pastor at Cleveland's The Word Church, said at a news conference today.
"We believe what happened to Tamir deserves justice," he said.
Police officers Frank Garmback and Timothy Loehmann have been been publicly identified as the officers involved in the fatal shooting but they have not been charged.
"I don’t think they are terrible men. I don’t think they did what they did on purpose. But they need to be held accountable," Vernon said.
The Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association issued a strongly-worded statement in support of the police officers.
"While these self-appointed leaders of our community continue to selfishly ignore the facts of this case," the statement read. "I will once again remind the same community of the decisions made by the United States Supreme Court and every lower court in the land. The fact is that police officers are responsible for their actions based on the information they had at the time of the incident and not through 20/20 hindsight."