November 22: Justice for Tamir Rice!
November 2, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Tamir Rice was a 12-year-old playing in a park who was gunned down by police in Cleveland, Ohio on November 22, 2014. November 22 marks one year since Cleveland, Ohio, police murdered 12-year-old Tamir Rice. His killers have never been charged. There are high stakes—in the battle for justice for Tamir and in the whole battle against police murder and terror—involved in whether police get away with this murder.
It’s on video: First you see Tamir, a child playing by himself with a toy gun, with no one else in sight. At one point he puts the “weapon” down on the sidewalk, makes a snowball, throws it, picks up the toy gun again. If you didn’t know what was coming, it would just be this cute scene of a child being... a child! Then a police car rolls up. Tamir walks towards it, the toy in his waistband. The car stops, and within two seconds a cop shoots Tamir. Though he is still alive, the cops do nothing to assist him or even to try and make him comfortable. They show less concern than most people would if they came upon an injured dog.
Two minutes later, Tamir’s 14-year-old sister runs across the park towards her wounded brother, and you see the police tackle her, put her in handcuffs, and force her into their squad car where she can see her younger brother dying on the sidewalk a few feet away. Later (not on video), police threaten Tamir’s mom with arrest because she was upset about her son’s death.
On October 10, the Cuyahoga County district attorney produced reports by two “experts” to justify the murder. In the words of one of them, the murder was justified because of “Officer Loehmann’s belief that Rice posed a threat of serious physical harm or death. …”
If a cop can murder a 12-year-old Black child playing with a toy gun that a 911 caller said was “probably fake”—within two seconds of arriving on the scene—and the system can justify this by claiming this pig considered the child to be “a threat,” then what is that but a green light for police to murder anyone as long as a cop claims the victim “posed a threat”?
This cannot go down! The pig who murdered Tamir Rice, along with his partner—who was complicit in the murder—must be indicted, convicted, and jailed!
Rise Up October has called for people to protest on the anniversary of Tamir Rice’s murder. Be in the streets November 22 demanding justice!
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