Tamir Rice. | Source: Cleveland Police Department
Exactly 10 years ago on Nov. 22 at around 3:30 p.m.,12-year-old Tamir Rice was playing outside of a recreation center with a toy gun and was shot by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann. Loehmann and his partner drove up to the 12-year-old and shot him within two seconds. Rice died the next day at MetroHealth Medical Center.
The 26-year-old police officer was never indicted for the killing.
There was outrage across the country, especially since Tamir’s death came just a few months after the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner being strangled to death by a New York City cop, and John Crawford’s police shooting at a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio.
In December 2014, the Rice family filed a civil suit and in 2017 won a settlement of $6 million.
But no one was ever held accountable for Rice’s death and it took nearly three years for Loehmann to be fired, and it was only because of a technicality: He lied on his application with the Cleveland Police Department. According to Cleveland.com, Loehmann failed to reveal that he was allowed to resign from a suburban department instead of being fired at the end of a six-month probationary period.
In 2019, a Cuyahoga County Judge upheld the Cleveland Police Department’s decision to fire Loehmann. It was also revealed that Loehmann was offered a part-time job with a police department in Bellaire, Ohio, but withdrew his application days later after criticism from Tamir Rice’s mother, Samaria Rice.
In 2021, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected Loehmann’s appeal advocating for his reinstatement to the force, upholding the city of Cleveland’s termination in 2017.
“I am glad that Loehmann will never have a badge and gun in Cleveland again,” Samaria Rice said in a statement after the court’s decision.
In 2022, Timothy Loehmann tried once again to get a job in law enforcement, this time in a small rural Pennsylvania town. But, less than 24 hours after it was reported, Loehmann’s photo of being sworn into the Tioga Borough Police Department went viral on social media, and he was forced to withdraw his application.
In July of this year, Loehmann resigned from the White Sulphur Springs Police Department in West Virginia, marking the third time in six years he’s left a police department due to backlash from his hiring.
Samaria Rice (l), the mother of Tamir Rice and Leslie McSpadden (r), the mother of Michael Brown, listen to Al Sharpton, at the ‘Justice For All’ march in Washington, D.C., on December 13, 2014. | Source: The Washington Post / Getty
In a rare interview, Samaria Rice recently recalled her son’s life and how even 10 years after the tragedy the local police department still hasn’t made the necessary strides in disciplining officers.
“It changed my DNA, it changed my kids’ DNA,” the mother of four told Cleveland magazine of the fateful police shooting. “We all suffer from PTSD, anxiety and depression, but I’m able to channel it in positive ways. They’re starting to channel theirs in positive ways.”
Samaria Rice had plenty to say about the police, too:
“It just amazes me how they don’t want accountability for their actions.”
She says she hasn’t seen much of a change in the local police, and puts her personal estimate of their compliance at around 50%.
“The people are scared of the police, and the police should be blaming themselves because y’all the one that made them scared,” she says. “You can’t call them for help! You have to be very strategic about calling them and say, Do you really wanna call? Which police are you going to get today, are you gonna get a good cop or a bad cop? It’s a roll of the dice.”
Samaria Rice added that the last decade “has been rough” with “A lot of sleepless nights, still having crying spells to this day. It’s not fair.”
She called Tamir “exceptional” before adding: “I don’t know what he could have been.”
Today, Tamir would have been 22 years old.
To remember his legacy, the Tamir Rice Foundation unveiled Tamir’s butterfly memorial in Cudell Park in 2022, the same place where his life was taken in 2014.
“This butterfly garden was created by Tamir’s community, who helped to turn it into something beautiful for better memories going forward, for the park, the Rice Family and the community,” reads a marker at the site.
Samaria Rice used some of the settlement money to establish the memorial.
“It’s a sacred place for me. It’s a memory for me, and I want it to be protected,” she told Cleveland magazine. “My son was murdered here, so this is the only piece that I have of him left.”
Rest in power, Tamir Rice.
SEE ALSO:
Tamir Rice’s Killer Cop Timothy Loehmann Just Can’t Keep A Job
Tamir Rice Remembered With Butterfly Memorial At Cleveland Park
