Samaria Rice, Tamir Rice’s mother, addressed the local media at Mount Olivet Baptist Church Monday morning, providing new information about the scene of her son’s shooting and calling for the convictions of responding officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback.
Loehmann, 26, is the officer who shot and killed Tamir.
Rice, who now has legal representation from Benjamin Crump — he also represents the families of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin — said she sent Tamir and her 14-year-old daughter to the Cudell Recreation Center at about noon with lunch.
At 3:30 p.m., she was told that her son had been shot. Rice said that police had handcuffed her daughter and put her in the back of a police cruiser.
When paramedics arrived on scene, the officers who had been holding her back gave her an “ultimatum”: Rice could stay with her daughter or ride in the ambulance with her dying son. Rice said she had to ride up front like a passenger.
She also said that she didn’t allow toy guns in her house and that Tamir got the airsoft pellet gun “from a friend.” She said justice would not be served until the officers responsible for her son’s death are convicted.
Crump echoes Rice’s sentiments and presented questions to the Cleveland Police Department on behalf of the family. He called, furthermore, for a Grand Jury to be bypassed in a criminal case against Loehmann and Garmback.
The Rev. Jawanza Colvin, of Mount Olivet, joined councilman Jeff Johnson in calling for the immediate resignation of Safety Director Michael McGrath and Marty Flask, the former safety director and current special assistant to the Mayor.
Andrew Tobias at the NEOMG reported Monday afternoon that McGrath won’t resign.
“I’ve been working for 41 years as a police officer, and I’ve been working very hard,” he told Tobias. “I’m not about to stop providing service to this community now. I’m passionate about it. And if there’s incidents that take place, there’s no point in my career where I ever sidestepped anything.”
(Thanks to @wkyc for live streaming this morning’s press conference).
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2014.
Oh, boy. I’m so grateful our man Sam Allard is on the scene to cut through the noise and get us the facts of the situation. Allard is one straight shooter. I’m halfway surprised he hasn’t been hired away by some big media outfit.
a horrible event for everyone involved. lives ruined and things will never be the same.
side note, woo hoo for another anonymous poster with a huge boner for allard. oh wait, its a bald guy living in his parents basement. at least he can look forward to his big 40th birthday coming up!