The shooting of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African-American boy (June 25, 2002 – November 23, 2014), occurred on November 22, 2014, in Cleveland, Ohio. Two police officers, 26-year-old Timothy Loehmann and 46-year-old Frank Garmback, responded after receiving a police dispatch call of a male black sitting on a swing and pointing a gun at people in a city park.[3] [4] [5] A caller reported that a male was pointing a pistol at random people in the Cudell Recreation Center. At the beginning of the call and again in the middle he says of the pistol its probably fake.[6] Toward the end of the two-minute call, the caller stated he is probably a juvenile.[7] However, this information was not relayed to Loehmann or Garmback on the initial dispatch.[8] [9] The officers reported that upon their arrival, Rice reached towards a gun in his waistband. The officers claim was later confirmed with enhanced video evidence, though the gun was a toy.[10] Within two seconds of arriving on the scene, Loehmann fired two shots, without yelling at Rice to drop the gun, in response to the toy weapon being drawn by Rice,[10] [11] [12] hitting Rice once in the torso.[4] [13] He died on the following day.[14]

Rices gun was later found to be an Airsoft toy gun that lacked the orange safety feature marking it as a replica and not a true firearm.[15] [16]

A surveillance video of the incedent was released by police four days later, on November 26.[17] On June 3, 2015, the County Sheriffs Office released a statement in which they declared their investigation to be completed and that they had turned their findings over to the county prosecutor. Several months later, the prosecution presented evidence to a grand jury, which declined to indict primarily on the basis that Rice was drawing what appears to be an actual firearm from his waist as the police arrived.[10] [18] [19] A lawsuit brought against the city of Cleveland by Rices family was subsequently settled for $6 million in an effort to reduce taxpayer liabilities.[1]

In the