Tamir Rice never had a chance to run. He never had a chance to put his hands up and surrender. He was gunned down in cold blood without warning, as shown on the video above.
He was twelve years old, he had a toy gun that shot rubber pellets, and even the 911 caller who reported him said it might be a toy.
Unfortunately, the dispatcher didn't tell police responding to the call that the gun might have been a toy. She did, however, call them out on a Code 1, which is a non-emergency, no lights, no siren call.
How is it, then, that police came zooming up on this kid and shot him dead without a second to spare?
Here's their story:
The caller eventually left, and Tamir sat down in the gazebo before Officers Timothy Loehman, 26, and Frank Garmback, 46, pulled up in a squad car.
There is no audio but Tomba said Loehman, who was in the passenger seat and who had been on the force only since March, yelled at the boy three times to show his hands as the car neared the gazebo.
Police circled a frame of the video in red that shows Tamir moving his hand — apparently to signal the moment they say the youth reached for the pellet gun.
Just as an experiment, try to shout three times "Hands up!" in that time frame and see if anyone can react fast enough to avoid being shot. I couldn't do it. That car roared up to him.
And again, this will be brought to a Grand Jury. Will the prosecutor be as dishonest as Bob McCulloch?
