Tamir Rice

Case background and investigation

On November 22, 2014, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy, was fatally shot by a Cleveland Division of Police officer at Cudell Recreation Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Tamir had been playing with an airsoft-style pellet gun that lacked the orange safety marking that distinguishes replica firearms from real ones. A 911 caller reported a person pointing a gun at people in the park and twice told the call-taker the gun was "probably fake" and that the person was "probably a juvenile." According to official accounts, the call-taker did not relay those qualifying details to the responding officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, who were dispatched to a person with a gun.

Surveillance video, released by police on November 26, 2014, showed that Loehmann shot Tamir within roughly two seconds of the patrol car arriving on scene. Tamir was struck in the torso and died of his injuries the following day, November 23, 2014, at MetroHealth Medical Center. The rapid sequence of events, the officers' near-immediate use of deadly force, and the fact that Tamir was a child with a toy made the case a national focal point during a period of intense national debate over police use of force.

The investigation was presented to a Cuyahoga County grand jury by prosecutor Timothy McGinty. On December 28, 2015, the grand jury declined to indict either officer on any criminal charges. McGinty described the shooting as the product of what he called a "perfect storm of human error, mistakes, and communications," and said the evidence did not support a finding of criminal conduct; he also faulted police radio personnel for not passing along the caller's qualifications. No officer was charged criminally in the shooting at the state level. Critics, including the Rice family, contested McGinty's handling of the grand jury process.

The U.S. Department of Justice conducted a separate federal civil-rights review. On December 29, 2020, the DOJ announced it was closing its investigation without charges, stating that career prosecutors found insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either officer willfully violated Tamir's federal civil rights under the applicable statute, and citing, in part, the poor quality of the available video. No individual was ever criminally charged in Tamir Rice's death by either state or federal authorities.

Separately, in April 2016, the City of Cleveland settled a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Tamir's family for $6 million, without any admission of wrongdoing. In May 2017, the Cleveland Division of Police fired Loehmann, citing not the shooting itself but inaccuracies and omissions in his employment application regarding his prior tenure at another department, where he had been deemed unfit for duty. Loehmann was subsequently offered or hired for policing roles in several small communities, including brief, short-lived stints in Bellaire, Ohio (2018), Tioga, Pennsylvania (2022), and jobs in West Virginia, each of which ended within days amid public objection. The case remains closed with no conviction of any person.