Skip to footer

Cleveland police to release video of 12-year old shot with toy gun

Cleveland police say they will release the audio and video of Tamir Rice, who was shot Saturday by an officer responding to a call about someone with a gun near a playground.

  • By Staff Associated Press

| Cleveland

Cleveland police planned to release surveillance video from an officer's fatal shooting of a 12-year-old boy who turned out to be carrying a replica gun.

A department spokeswoman said video and audio evidence would be released Wednesday afternoon, when police Chief Calvin Williams provides an update on the investigation.

Tamir Rice was shot Saturday by an officer responding to a call about someone with a gun near a playground. Police say Tamir was told to raise his hands, then reached into his waistband for what appeared to be a firearm. Police later determined it was an airsoft gun, which typically shoots tiny plastic pellets, but it was missing an orange safety indicator.

The family's attorneys saw the video Monday, a day after Rice died. They later called for the full footage to be released publicly.

City officials had been withholding the video, saying that it was evidence in the investigation and that they wanted to be sensitive to the family, the community and the officer, whom they described as distraught.

Police haven't discussed details of what the video shows, but Deputy Chief Edward Tomba said the footage is "very clear" about what occurred.

The shooting has led to an investigation of the officer's use of force and protests referencing this and other police-involved shootings.

On Tuesday evening, several hundred demonstrators marched down an exit ramp and temporarily blocked rush-hour traffic on a busy Cleveland freeway. Police diverted traffic but didn't take action against the protesters, who chanted phrases such as "Hands up, don't shoot" and "No justice, no peace."

The demonstration came as protesters across the country decried a grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer who killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.

As The Christian Science Monitor reported, the hacktivist group, Anonymous, claimed that it shut down the city of Cleveland's website in retribution for the shooting, reports The Plain Dealer. 

In a video message posted on YouTube, Anonymous charges that an "untrained rookie officer" shot Tamir "in cold blood," and asks why the officer did not Taser the child.

"Police of the United States you will learn in due time once anonymous has shut down your sites that we will not stand for your ignorant untrained rookie cops," the message said.

State Rep. Alice Reece, a Democrat from Cincinnati and the president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, announced Sunday that she will introduce legislation requiring all BB guns, air rifles and airsoft guns sold in Ohio to be brightly colored or have prominent fluorescent strips.

.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Cleveland police to release video of 12-year old shot with toy gun
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1126/Cleveland-police-to-release-video-of-12-year-old-shot-with-toy-gun
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe