*The white Cleveland police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice has filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court to get his job back.
The city fired Timothy Loehmann in 2017 not for his fatal shooting of a child but for providing false information on his employment application, per CBS News. An arbitrator and a county judge upheld his dismissal. Loehmann shot Tamir within seconds of their encounter in 2014. Rice was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center at the time of the killing.
A state appellate court earlier this year dismissed Loehmann’s appeal on a technicality. A police union is seeking to have the Supreme Court overturn that ruling, NBC News reports
We previously reported that the attorneys for Tamir’s family have requested the Justice Dept. re-open the investigation to the Cleveland police shooting that killed the youngster.
READ MORE: Tamir Rice Family Via Attorneys Ask DOJ to Re-open Police Investigation of His Case
On April 16, an eight-page letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to allow prosecutors to convene a grand jury. The letter 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.
“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.
“The election of President Biden, your appointment and your commitment to the rule of law, racial justice, and police reform give Tamir’s family hope that the chance for accountability is not lost forever,” the letter says.
In December, prior to Garland’s appointment, the Justice Department officially closed the investigation into Tamir’s death. It said there was not enough evidence to bring charges against the officers involved in the case.
