Tamir Rice’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Cleveland and the two policemen involved in the 12-year-old boy’s tragic shooting death, Fox 8 reports.
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Rice’s family attorney said that the suit, filed on Friday, alleges that the Cleveland officers “confronted him in a surprise fashion” while he “was playing … in the park. He was not endangering anyone, he was not violent.”
According to Fox 8, the lawsuit referred to the Airsoft BB gun the boy was playing with as a “toy,” pointing out that “young boys playing with replica guns are commonplace in America.”
The officer responsible for shooting and killing Tamir, 26-year-old Timothy Loehmann, was discovered in recent reports to have been declared unfit for duty in 2012 in a letter attached to his personnel file from the Independence, Ohio, Police Department, a former employer.
In part, the letter written by Independence Deputy Chief Jim Polak read, “He could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal. … I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies.”
Read more at Fox 8.
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