Attorneys for Tamir Rice’s family ask the Justice Department to re-open investigation into boy’s death
In December, the Justice Department officially closed the investigation into Tamir Rice’s (12-year-old boy) death. It said there was not enough evidence to bring charges against the officers involved in the case.
An eight-page letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urges him to allow prosecutors to convene a grand jury. The letter, dated Friday, says that the Justice Department under then-President Obama opened an investigation into the matter. But years later, then-President Trump’s political appointees stifled it, the letter says.
Police killed Tamir Rice in 2014. Officers responded to a report of someone pointing a gun at people outside the recreation center. The caller told a 911 dispatcher that the gun looked fake, but that information was never relayed to the officers. Then-officer Timothy Loehmann shot Tamir at Cudell Recreation Center on Nov. 22, 2014, while the boy was playing was an airsoft pellet gun.
“Career attorneys at DOJ sought twice to convene a grand jury in this case, only to be quashed by their political superiors,” says the letter signed by Jonathan Abady, Earl Ward and Zoe Salzman, New York attorneys who represent the family with other lawyers, including Subodh Chandra in Cleveland.
