No indictment for officer who shot Tamir Rice; reasonable to assume officer was threatened

Due to a shoddy case presented by a prosecutor. Grand juries do what prosecutors want 99.9% of the time - that's how they are designed. If you can't get an indictment, it generally means you didn't want one. Nothing wrong with that if you don't think the evidence is there - but then it should never be brought to the grand jury in the first place. Intentionally presenting a crappy case and then getting a non-indictment serves as cover so people like you can stand behind the "legitimacy" of the jury, but it does nothing to actually serve justice. It only reinforces and justifies the complaints that cops and prosecutors manipulate the system when it comes to these cases.

 

Due to the facts of the case. It's not a prosecutors job to try and railroad someone they believe to be innocent, there's a code of ethics they are bound by. The whole reason for a Grand Jury is to have others decide the merits of a case so that no bias can be at play. I know that the family would have had the prosecutor try and manipulate the evidence to where they could get an indictment, but that's not really justice.

There's just not any evidence of a crime in this case, it was just a tragic misunderstanding. I know that won't appease the family, but if they really cared about their kid, they wouldn't have had him running around unsupervised with a replica pistol.

 

Why would they pursue charges against the officer who shot him? It was the bonehead driving the car that put him in that situation. I could never imagine that a trained officer would approach a situation the way he did, but he did it.

 

"Simply put, given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police," Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty told reporters.

 

Since the prosecutor is the only one selecting the evidence to show and how to present it, this is by definition not true. The bias of the prosecutor absolutely comes into play - and that's how it's meant to be, because the prosecutor is meant to prosecute cases where he believes there is guilt. That's exactly why grand juries basically always produce indictments.

If he doesn't believe the person might be guilty, he shouldn't be the prosecutor - prosecutors are advocates for guilt while defense attorneys are advocates for innocence. That's the underlying basis of an adversarial legal system.

Good read here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/no-indictment-tamir-rice_5681918ce4b0b958f65a19c5


No One Was Indicted In The Tamir Rice Case. That Was The Plan All Along.

The prosecutor made it abundantly clear he wanted the two cops to walk.



...

But this specific constitutional nuance shouldn't have mattered to McGinty, whose job before the grand jury wasn't to seek Loehmann's absolution. His only role before the grand jury, in this case and all other cases, was to present enough evidence to justify a prosecution by the state -- to get the wheels of justice rolling, so to speak.

That's a very low bar. So low that Justice Antonin Scalia once explained that he and his colleagues refused time and again to micromanage prosecutors because they were unwilling to "alter the grand jury's historical role, transforming it from an accusatory to an adjudicatory body."

Because in the end, all prosecutors and grand jurors do is accuse. If the war on drugs has taught us anything, it's that prosecutors are very good at convincing grand juries that a criminal case is warranted, even on the flimsiest of evidence.

A judge concluded as much in June when he found that there was probable cause to prosecute Loehmann and his partner Frank Garmback. That's really all there is to it.

But somewhere along the way, McGinty decided to go beyond his role, resorting to tactics not even the prosecutors in the probes of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases dared attempt.

Not only did he decide to talk to the press. Ahead of Monday's announcement, he also released report after report to the media -- lengthy experts' accounts rife with legalese that tried to exonerate Loehmann and Garmback of any wrongdoing.

"Officer Loehmann’s belief that Rice posed a threat of serious physical harm or death was objectively reasonable as was his response to that perceived threat," read one of them.

And in case any doubt remained about his commitment to the officers' cause, McGinty released a third report in November, complete with a frame-by-frame analysis of the shooting. The conclusion there was even more dramatic.

"This unquestionably was a tragic loss of life, but to compound the tragedy by labeling the officer's conduct as anything but objectively reasonable would also be a tragedy, albeit not carrying with it the consequences of the loss of life, only the possibility of loss of career," the report said.

...

 

SMH, people upset that innocent men weren't indicted and that a grand jury didn't agree with them.....just pathetic.

 

OJ is innocent.

 

In Bobby's world, if an authority tells him something, it's unimpeachably true. The sham grand juries are designed exactly for people like him - just create a veil of justice and no critical thinking is needed.

 

You are just wearing a tin foil hat because there isn't going to be the lynching you had your heart set on. You care nothing about what actually happened and that is obvious.

 

jeez, no wonder why BLM is so up in arms, a trial is now a lynching.

 

They should have an easy civil suit. Those cops had records before. The fact the police department did not do their due dillegence and hired them or kept them on makes them liable. The cops should effectively never be able to get jobs again unless another company wants to take liability risks.

 

The person was not guilty of a crime, but they wanted them punished anyway....the fact that the judicial system worked is why they are angry.

 

Let's just ignore the fact that these officers threw out basic common sense and tactical awareness in regards to this incident. Their negligence in utilizing common sense tactics killed a 12 year old.

Civilians without a badge have been thrown in jail for man slaughter due to negligence. Why not cops?

 

Don't worry, he's going to ignore it. I'm sure he thinks the cops handled this situation perfectly!

 

It was a tragic accident, but there was nothing criminal about it. A little more understanding of the law would help people like you out. Several times now you've been outraged when no crime has been committed. I know, I know, a young black child was killed so in your mind SOMEONE MUST PAY!!!! That's just not how justice works.

It was pretty clear that this was the culmination of several unfortunate factors that led to the kid being shot. One of those factors being that his parents gave him a realistic looking gun and let him roam the streets playing with it without supervision.

 

QUESTION: Ohio is an open carry state . . . what law *exactly* did he break? What crime did he commit?
Even if it was a real gun . . . he would have had the right to carry and the cops would have been duty bound to sort that out before they did anything.

Don't say not following orders because he was dead within seconds of the cop's arrival. He had no time to comply

Rocket River

 

Did you follow the story? The kid was reaching for the gun, probably to either give it to them or to show them it wasn't real, the officers mistook that as a hostile act so they fired. When you have a gun and cops roll on you saying "hands up", you'd better just put your hands up or if the gun is in your hand, you better drop it. How is any of this hard for you to understand?

 

Lol, the usual from Bobby of blaming the victim. What's new?

You seem to not even comprehend what i'm "Outraged" about, keep up. I don't care about what you perceive to be criminal or not. I don't think in such simple terms that if the government thinks it's a crime then it's a crime and we all should just accept it. It's scary that so many people think that way.

Oh wow look at that, two more people shot and killed. One a 55 year old woman who even the cops admitted was an accident. Oh well, no crime there right...

Oops, we accidentally killed a 12 year old. No crime, move on! It was just an accident!

 

I watched the tape . . . . they did not give him enough time to do anything
they rolled up on him and were practically shooting as they opened the door.


<iframe src="https://embed.theguardian.com/embed/video/us-news/video/2014/nov/26/cleveland-video-tamir-rice-shooting-police" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

1:04 - Cop car rolls up
1:07 - child is shot and killed

You sir . . .are a liar and a willfully ignorant person
who will do anything to protect the system . . . .

Good Day sir . . . .

I SAID GOOD DAY!!

Rocket River
You are exactly what we think you are