I just watched a miserable excuse of a human being blame a 12 year old boy for his own murder. Rather than rant about miserable human beings, I'd like to spend the next few minutes laying out the case.
Tamir was a 12 year old boy playing in a park near his house. His friend had given him a (legal) air-soft pistol to play with. The orange tip had been removed, but this is at most a misdemeanor, and Tamir was not the person who removed it.
A caller dialed 911 and told the dispatcher that there was a young man in the park playing with something that looked like it could be a gun. The caller informed the dispatcher that the young man was probably a juvenile, and that the gun was probably a toy. Neither of those two facts was relayed to the responding officers.
Rather than approach from a safe distance, the police drove aggressively toward Tamir, jumped out of the car and shot him dead within two seconds of arrival. I'm not even sure the car has stopped rolling before Tamir was murdered. Video is above. Tamir had made no physical or verbal threat to the officers. (and he was 12)
The officer who murdered Tamir should have never been allowed to be a cop. He had spent 4 months at the police academy, and one month as a cop in nearby Independence, Ohio.
In a memo to Independence's human resources manager, released by the city in the aftermath of the shooting, Independence deputy police chief Jim Polak wrote that Loehmann had resigned rather than face certain termination due to the concern that he lacked the emotional stability to be a police officer. Polak said that Loehmann was unable to follow "basic functions as instructed" and specifically cited a "dangerous loss of composure" that occurred in a weapons training exercise. Polak said that Loehmann's weapons handling was "dismal" and he became visibly "distracted and weepy" as a result of relationship problems. The memo concluded, "Individually, these events would not be considered major situations, but when taken together they show a pattern of a lack of maturity, indiscretion and not following instructions, I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct these deficiencies." It was subsequently revealed that Cleveland police officials never reviewed Loehmann's personnel file from Independence prior to hiring him. He had been hired in Cleveland despite listing his primary source of income for the prior six months having been derived from "under-the-table jobs."
Tamir was a 12 year old boy playing with a toy in the park next to his home. As he lay dying in the snow, his 14 year old sister ran distraught and screaming to him... and the police tackled and handcuffed her. Four goddamned minutes passed before anyone thought to even try to help Tamir as he lay dying.
No one was ever indicted or even charged for Tamir's murder.
He was 12.