The mother of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy shot by police in Cleveland, said Monday that her 14-year-old daughter was tackled and handcuffed when she tried to run to her brother’s aid and that she herself was threatened with arrest when she arrived on the scene.
Tamir Rice was shot by Cleveland Police Officer Timothy Loehmann on Nov. 22 when the boy reached for a gun in his waistband. The gun was later determined to be a pellet gun, but the orange tip identifying it as a toy had been taken off.
Samaria Rice, Tamir’s mother, said on a CNN video that she arrived on the scene to see her daughter handcuffed and in the back of a police car and her son lying on the ground; when she “went charging and yelling at police” she was threatened with arrest.
Councilman Jeffrey Johnson was at the press conference with the Rice family. “The treatment of the family is unacceptable," he said, CNN reported. “It just shows the lack of training when we shackle a grieving sister, threaten a grieving mother and not even take care of a child lying on the ground."
Samaria Rice also said that she asked police to release her daughter and they wouldn’t, informing her that she would have to decide whether to ride to the hospital with her son or stay with her daughter, CNN said. She chose to ride to the hospital in the ambulance.
Samaria Rice said she is
“looking for a conviction” of Loehmann for shooting her son, NBC News reported.
The Rice family’s attorney Benjamin Crump said he doesn’t believe Loehmann should have a grand jury trial, as officials have said will occur, NBC said. The grand jury is convened in officer-related shootings.
“There is nothing written anywhere in the law that says police officers are to be treated differently than any other citizen," he told NBC.
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