Tamir

Tamir Rice

Tamir Rice

12-year-old boy

In November 2014, police officers from Cleveland, Ohio, shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice. The police department received a report about a man who “sits on a swing and threatens passers-by with a gun.”

The caller said twice that the gun might not be real and that it was probably being brandished by a teenager. However, this information was not passed on to the police in time. Police officers who arrived at the scene ordered Rice to show his hands several times, but after they thought the boy was allegedly reaching for a gun, the officers shot him twice. It was later revealed that the gun Rice was brandishing was an air gun. There was no orange tip on its barrel, which would indicate that his weapon was not lethal. The day after the incident, the boy died in hospital from injuries.

In May 2021, the Rice family said it still intended to seek justice and asked the U.S. Attorney General to reopen the case against the officers involved in the boy’s death.