The mother of Tamir Rice, the Black 12-year-old boy who was fatally shot by Cleveland police, is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to block the former officer’s attempt to get his job back, reports NBC News.
Rice was shot and killed in November 2014 outside the Cudell Recreation Center by then Cleveland Police Officer Timothy Loehmann after police received a call about someone pointing a gun at people.
The caller had told the dispatcher that the gun looked fake, but that information was never relayed to Loehmann or his partner, Frank Garmback.
Video footage of the fatal encounter showed Loehmann, who is White, fired at Rice within seconds of getting out of his squad car. Rice died the following morning at a Cleveland hospital.
A Cuyahoga County grand jury declined to bring criminal charges against Loehmann, who had been with the Cleveland police department for less than a year at the time of the shooting.
He was fired by the department in May 2017, but not for killing Rice. The police department said it let Loehmann go because he had lied on his job application and failed to disclose that he had been dismissed from the Independence Police Department in Ohio after they had deemed him unfit to serve.
After his firing, lawyers for the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association argued that Loehmann was wrongfully terminated and filed a grievance challenging the termination. Loehmann filed an appeal last month with the state Supreme Court in an attempt to get his job back.
Attorneys for Rice’s mother, Samaria Rice, filed an amicus brief on Monday saying that Loehmann should never again be trusted with a badge and a gun.
