No Charges in a Child's Death

Is anyone responsible for Tamir Rice's death?

The announcement earlier today by Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty that the members of a Cleveland grand jury have declined to indict Cleveland police officer Tim Loehmann for the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice has left many people saddened, but few surprised.

With the news breaking this afternoon, the media will be devoting plenty of time and analysis as to the performance of the prosecutor's office in seeking justice for a child who couldn't testify on his own behalf.

I'll leave it to more learned men and women than I to determine what measure of responsibility CPD officer Loehmann bears for pulling the trigger of his gun less than six seconds after pulling up to the park pavilion in Cleveland where Rice was shot on a snowy day in Cleveland back on November 23, 2014.  

As a New York Times article about the grand jury decision reported earlier today, Cleveland Police chief Calvin Williams insists that the pending results of an as-yet incomplete "administrative review" of the actions of the officer Loehamann and the driver of the cruiser officer Frank Garmback in the incident will determine if any member of the CPD will face charges of any kind for Rice's death.

According to the Times article Chief Williams promised that "We'll look at the incident from start to finish."

But frankly the Cleveland Police Department and the city have had more than a year to conduct internal investigations of its officer's professional conduct with regards to this case, my guess is that if departmental charges were going to be filed they would have already.  

If you were to walk out on the street of any city in America and ask a random person what kind of faith people would place in a police department's own "administrative review" my guess would be very little; if any at all.

It's not possible to get into the minds of the grand jury in this case, and they've obviously made their decision.

Timothy Loehmann

But one thing that I would be curious to know how is just much time the grand jury (who found no grounds for charges) spent reviewing the fact that Timothy Loehmann had been forced to resign from his previous position with the suburban Independence Police Department because of what his former chief Jim Polak called serious "deficiencies" in a report on November 29, 2012 in which he described Loehmann's handgun performance as "dismal".

The deficiencies in performance which Polak reported included "dangerous loss of composure during live range training and his inability to manage this personal stress."

It's probably fair to say Loehmann's loss of composure issues were still a serious issue when he shot Tamir Rice two years after that report from the Independence PD was written.

But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Chief Williams' administrative review to cover Loehmann's composure issues.

If this investigation has shown anything, it's that the city of Cleveland and the prosecutor Timothy McGinty are pretty much resigned to doing whatever they can to prove the remarkable legal determination that no one who was actually involved in the shooting of Tamir Rice bears any responsibility for his death.

In the meantime, officers Loehmann and Garmback will remain on "restricted duty" until the completion of the CPD's aforementioned "administrative review".

I hate to be such a cynic about this case, but restricted duty is about as much punishment as Timothy Loehmann is probably going to face for taking the life of a 12-year-old child.

That's just a sad commentary on the state of 21st century policing in America no matter how you look at it.
    

Objectively Reasonable?

Buster the cat ponders the Democratic debate

It was my plan earlier this evening to head over to watch the Democratic presidential debate with some liberal minded friends but after getting caught out in the thunderous downpour that hit parts of central New Jersey around 7pm, I changed my mind.

Since the post-debate media coverage of the debate will be exhaustive, I decided to sit in front of my lap top and get some work done while following The New York Times live play-by-play of the debate on my Kindle with my trusty cat Buster.

Like me, Buster (pictured left) is still wondering if Senator Bernie Sanders can appeal to a wider mainstream American electorate.

Before I get back to scanning the post-debate analysis online, I just wanted to share a few observations on the results of the Tamir Rice investigation summary findings that were released late Saturday night. 

Like millions of other people who've followed this tragic case of injustice since 12-year old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by Cleveland Police officer Timothy Loehmann just before Thanksgiving back on November 21, 2014, I'm starting to get an uncomfortably familiar feeling about the course this investigation is taking.

As you've likely heard by now, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's office released the controversial results of two separate investigations by use-of-force experts S. Lamar Sims and Kimberly Crawford which suggest that Loehmann's shooting of Rice was "objectively reasonable".

Prosecutor? Or cop defender? Timothy McGinty

Members of Rice's family, activists, protesters and people around the globe who've followed this case with interest since last year are expressing widespread concern that the leaked investigation results are an indicator that Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty (pictured left) is using the same kind of sleazy back-door tactics used in the prosecution of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of 18-year old Michael Brown.

Thanks to the efforts (or appalling lack thereof) of prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch, a man with deep ties to the Ferguson PD whose father was killed in the line of duty when McCulloch was 12-years old, the St. Louis County grand jury decided not to indict Wilson on any charges whatsoever in the death of Michael Brown.

The decision of the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office to release these findings suggests they are following the same strategy as McCulloch did; they're essentially planning to exonerate Timothy Loehmann of any wrong doing in the death of an innocent child.

Now I don't think anyone would suggest that the Cleveland Police Department didn't have good reason to be cautious after responding to a 911 call about someone in Cudell Park pointing a gun at people.

But the caller told the police dispatcher TWICE that he thought the gun "was probably fake" and that the person pointing it was likely a juvenile. Even though the CPD claims the dispatcher never relayed that info to the two officers who responded to the scene, does that still make Loehmann's decision to shoot Rice "objectively reasonable"?

According to a detailed breakdown of the incident on Wikipedia:

"A surveillance video without audio of the shooting was released by police on November 26 after pressure from the public and the child's family. It showed Rice pacing around the park, occasionally extending his right arm with what could be a gun in his hand, talking on a cellphone, and sitting at a picnic table in a gazebo. The video shows a patrol car driving at a high rate of speed across the park lawn and then stopping abruptly by the gazebo. Loehmann then jumps out of the car and immediately shoots Rice from a distance of less than 10 feet (3.0 m). According to Judge Ronald B. Adrine in a judgment entry on the case "this court is still thunderstruck by how quickly this event turned deadly.... On the video the zone car containing Patrol Officers Loehmann and Garmback is still in the process of stopping when Rice is shot." 

Are those actions "objectively reasonable"? Doesn't sound like the judge thought they were.

Personally, I thought The Field Negro was spot on in his blog post last Sunday when he contrasted the reactions by police in San Diego to a report of a man waving a gun in a public area, to the actions taken by Cleveland police officers Loehmann and Garmback (who was driving).

As TFN observed, when San Diego PD responded to a disturbed man waving a gun in a public place, they spent over an hour negotiating with him to try and get him to lay down his weapon, until one (or more) of the officers were forced to shoot and wound him.

Loehmann essentially pulled out his gun and shot Rice at point blank range even while the car was still moving.

Now I am not a use-of-force expert, so I can't debate the conclusions of S. Lamar Sims and Kimberly Crawford; two individuals who have far more knowledge of law enforcement training and tactics than I do.

But I'm not the only one who finds it odd that their investigation of the Rice shooting finds that Loehamann's actions were "objectively reasonable" even though his past record as a police officer not only showed him to be incompetent, but a former supervisor noted that he displayed "dismal handgun performance."

It's late and I have to be up early, but if you want to read over some more details about just what kind of cop Timothy Loehmann was, check out my blog post from December 4, 2014 - before he joined the CPD, this guy had literally been fired from the Cleveland Independent Police Department because he was incompetent. 

As MSNBC reported back in 2014, Loehhmann's former Deputy Chief of the Independence PD Jim Polak wrote of Loehmann:

“Due to this dangerous loss of composure during live range training and his inability to manage this personal stress, I do not believe Ptl. Loehmann shows the maturity needed to work in our employment,” Polak wrote on Nov. 29. “I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies.”  

Loehmann resigned five days after that report was written and Polak's observation proved to be uncannily accurate.

Timothy Loehmann

Loehmann (pictured left) showed poor judgment when he was with the Independence PD as he did when he pulled up to the pavilion area and shot a kid at point blank range.

Did the Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty and S. Lamar Sims and Kimberly Crawford (the two use-of-force experts he hired to investigate the case) simply decide Loehmann's dismal record as a police officer prior to joining the CPD was not relevant?

How in good conscience could the prosecutor read that evaluation of Timothy Loehamann's performance as an officer and still agree that his decision to take out his weapon and kill a 12-year old with a plastic toy gun on November 21, 2014 was "objectively reasonable"?

Sadly, it sounds like Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty is acting in the interests of the city of Cleveland to prevent Rice's family from suing the city for millions as he also acts to protect a totally incompetent police officer from being held responsible for his actions.

The anniversary of the case is coming up in November, so we're sure to see more extensive media coverage of how the case plays out.

But for now, prosecutor Timothy McGinty is giving every indication that the city of Cleveland is planning to reinforce an unwritten rule that, regardless of the circumstances, using deadly force on someone with dark skin in this country is "objectively reasonable" for members of U.S. law enforcement.

Every. Single. Time.

Michael Brelo's "Constitutionally Reasonable Effort"

Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo

Imagine if members of the police in a Russian, Chinese, North Korean or Iranian city sent more than 100 officers in pursuit of a car with two occupants inside in a chase that lasted over 22 minutes and stretched over 20 miles.

Now picture what the reaction of the American public and the politicians who represent us might be if, once that car was stopped and cornered in the parking lot of a middle school, at least 13 of those police officers pulled out their hand guns and fired 137 shots at the unarmed couple inside, who it turns out, were being mistakenly pursued after the muffler of their 1979 Chevy Malibu backfired and someone mistook it for gunshots. 

It's fair to say that there would probably be a lot of righteous indignation and moral outrage expressed in mainstream and social media.

Op-ed writers, talking heads on television and average Americans alike would more than likely condemn such an act as a flagrant human rights violation.

If, as my hypothetical above suggests, such an act had taken place in a city like Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang or Tehran, US politicians in Washington would likely be on the floor of the Senate or House, or on the Sunday morning news programs condemning such an act as an example of the need for more "Democracy" and criticizing the respective nation's leaders for oppressing their citizens.

But as you've probably heard by now, that event actually took place in the city of Cleveland, Ohio just after the Thanksgiving holiday back on November 29, 2012.

Victims Malissa Williams (left) and Timothy Russell (right)

The two occupants of the car, driver Timothy Russell and his passenger Malissa Williams (pictured left), were not only unarmed, from the evidence presented in court they hadn't actually committed a crime or violated a law; aside from fleeing from the 100 police officers who were chasing them.

The 13 Cleveland police officers who actually fired the 137 shots at the car were all white, save for one Hispanic officer; while the unarmed couple were African-American. 

As was widely reported around the globe yesterday, Cuyahoga, Cleveland Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell acquitted police officer Michael Brelo of two charges of manslaughter in the deaths of Williams and Russell.

Brelo was also found not guilty of the lesser charge of felonious assault even though he personally fired an astounding 49 shots from his Glock 17 pistol, Judge O'Donnell ruled that there was inconclusive proof that any of Brelo's shots were the ones that actually killed the couple.

Bear in mind that after all 13 officers had finished firing 122 shots at the car, it was officer Brelo (who'd already fired 34 shots into the vehicle), who then reloaded his Glock 17, jumped up onto the front hood of the car and fired 15 more shots directly into the vehicle at both passengers.

In his closing remarks to the court, Judge O'Donnell said Brelo was legally excused from responsibility for his actions because the harm he caused the two victims was done in a "Constitutionally reasonable effort."  

As an article on the shooting in yesterday's New York Times noted, a 2014 study by the Department of Justice found "a pattern of 'unreasonable and unnecessary use of force' within the department."

A pattern that includes the deaths of two unarmed African-Americans in November of 2014; Tamir Rice, a 12 year-old boy who was shot and killed by Cleveland police while brandishing a toy gun in a park, and Tanisha Anderson, a 37 year-old woman who suffered from bi-polar disorder who was in police custody when, according to the New York Times, she "died after being placed face down on the pavement. The medical examiner ruled her death a homicide."     

Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker

As someone fascinated by history, it is of interest to note that yesterday, the day the acquittal of officer Brelo was announced, was the 81st anniversary of the famous police ambush of outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker on an isolated road deep in the woods of Bienville Parish, Louisiana back on the morning of May 23, 1934.

"Bonnie and Clyde", as they are widely known, had been eluding police for months after committing a high-profile string of robberies and holdups across five mid-western states and the murder of at least nine different people; including Oklahoma police deputy Eugene C. Moore on August 5, 1932.

When the couple drove into the ambush, a posse of four Texas lawmen and two police officers from Louisiana fired about 130 rounds from automatic rifles, shotguns and handguns at their car.
 
According to the official coroner's report filed by Dr. J.L. Wade in 1934, Clyde Barrow was shot 17 times and Bonnie Parker was shot 26 times; some historians say it was more.

When police searched the bullet-ridden car they found a cache of automatic rifles, shotguns, handguns and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Cleveland police fired 137 shots at Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, who were unarmed and had committed no actual crime to warrant the police pursuit.

So here we are in the 21st century and for now, no Cleveland police officer has been found guilty of any charge whatsoever after they fired more shots at an innocent unarmed African-American couple than were fired at Bonnie and Clyde who'd committed a string of robberies and nine different murders across five states in 1934.

Interestingly, Judge O'Donnell ruled that even though Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams hadn't actually fired a shot from the car and didn't even have a gun in the first place, officer Michael Brelo's fear that they had done so was enough to warrant his use of deadly force on two innocent unarmed people.

It's a rather peculiar interpretation of the law, and a sad one for the families and friends of these two victims who never had a chance to testify on their own behalf.

The US justice system has ruled (once again) that the perceptions or fears of a police officer, whether they're actually right or not, outweigh the value of the life of an African-American citizen.

Fears that in this case, were triggered by a muffler backfiring, and so tragically proved to be both completely "unreasonable and unnecessary."