Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, was terminated May 30th, 2017. The officer who was with Loehmann, Frank Garmback, is currently being suspended for 10 days because he violated tactical rules relating to how he drove to the scene that day.

On Nov. 22, 2014, the officers were dispatched after Tamir was reported for playing with a pellet gun near a recreation center. Though the caller specified that the gun was “probably fake,” that information was not communicated to the responding officers…. Loehmann, pictured above, shot and killed Rice. 

Timothy Loehmann

Clearly the wrong person was hired.

Loehmann was fired for inaccurate details on his job application and other administrative policy violations, not for the Rice shooting. Loehmann misrepresented himself on his job application with the Cleveland Division of Police where he had been an officer for eight months, within the probationary period, and was allegedly fired. 

(He wasn’t fired over killing Rice, a 12-year-old boy, but for lying on his application.)

At a news conference, Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said that in 2015 the police department began looking through employment history during the hiring process, which it did not do when it hired Loehmann.

“Hopefully we won’t have any more incidents like this,” Williams said. “This has been tough on our entire community, and definitely on the Rice family. When this happened in 2014, I made the comment that this is, of course, a tragedy, but it’s even more tragic that it happened at the hands of a Cleveland police officer.”

Tamir Rice’s mother, Samira Rice, is relieved that Loehmann was fired but believes Garmback should have been terminated as well.

In a statement released by family attorneys, she said Loehmann “should never have been a police officer in the first place — but he should have been fired for shooting my son in less than one second, not just for lying on his application. As we continue to grieve for Tamir, I hope this is a call for all of us to build stronger communities together.

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More details as story develops…