How Can No One Be to Blame for Tamir Rice’s Death? | Portside



How Can No One Be to Blame for Tamir Rice’s Death? | Portside:

As we know from media reports out of Cleveland, there was no reason to expect that Loemann would or could take appropriate action in that moment. In 2012, the police department that he worked for in Independence, Ohio, noted that he was “distracted” and “weepy” during firearms training. The deputy chief of police there reported that Loehmann “could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.” That same supervisor wrote, “I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies.” Loehmann resigned after six months on that force, but went on in March of 2014 to join the Cleveland Police Department, which did not review his file from Independence. He scored the new position after failing to secure a job with police departments in Akron, Euclid, and Parma Heights or with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department.

Loehmann’s shortcomings bring to mind the Barney Fife fumblings of the McKinney, Texas, officer whom video showed to be clearly out of his depths—somersaulting needlessly outside a pool party and waving his gun at teenagers before sitting on a bikini-clad girl’s back. They bring to mind the cowardice of Officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina, who took aim at the back of a running Walter Scott.

Loehmann wasn’t the only officer present at the scene. He opened fire after stepping out of a car driven by Officer Frank Garmback, who was accused of using excessive force against a 39-year-old black woman in 2010. Cleveland eventually paid the woman $100,000 to settle. According to The New York Times, after shooting Tamir Rice, the officers stood around for approximately four minutes. Neither of them checked his vital signs or gave him first aid.

They shot the boy within two seconds of arriving. What could they have possibly surmised in those two seconds?

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