The Tamir Rice Decision Is Injustice For All
In the wake of the grand-jury decision not to charge Cleveland Police officers for shooting Tamir Rice, we must all pause to consider what we as a state, and a nation have become. A national look in the mirror is way past due.
On December 28, 20015, a Cleveland grand-jury failed to bring charges against the officers for the killing of Tamir Rice.
Rice, a 12-year-old boy playing with a pellet gun in a park near his home, was gunned down by Cleveland Police in two seconds after the department was alerted by a citizen about a person in the park with a gun. The caller also clearly stated to police dispatch that the gun may not be real.
Despite the caller’s warning that Rice’s gun may not be real, Cleveland Police pulled their car next to the picnic shelter that Rice was standing in, and in two seconds, opened fire, killing the child.
The tragedy of errors in communication and logic that led up to Rice’s death were many. From not being fully informed by police dispatchers that Rice may be a juvenile and that the gun that he was playing with may very well be fake, to police rolling up on Rice and getting out of their car and opening fire in two seconds before doing any assessment of the situation at hand, the Rice case is a lesson in much that is fundamentally wrong in American law enforcement.
More here: https://www.votedavidsparks.org/injusticeforall/