The city of Cleveland reached a settlement in the lawsuit over the killing of Tamir Rice on Monday, agreeing to pay the family $6 million. The city is expected to pay $3 million in 2016 and the remaining $3 million next year, according toABC News. "The resolution is nothing to celebrate because a 12-year-old child needlessly lost his life," attorney Subodh Chandra said of the latest development in the wrongful death suit.
Rice was killed in November of 2014 by officer Timothy Loehmann, who ABC News notes fired at 12-year-old Rice "within two seconds" of opening his car door. Loehmann and officer Frank Garmback had responded to the Cudell Recreation Center after a caller reported seeing a male with a "pistol," though the caller stated on multiple occasions that the gun was most likely fake. The city alleges that, despite those warnings, the information was not passed on to the responding officers.
The officers involved in the shooting death of Rice ultimately escaped charges, though a federal civil rights investigation is reportedly still in progress. Rice's death inspired waves of protest and distrust of police departments all across the nation, with both citizens and experts alike pointing to what they deemed an obvious case of unnecessary police force being used in a situation that required nothing of the sort.
Rice's tragic death has remained a source of controversy for Cleveland's so-called finest, with an EMS captain taking the opportunity just last month to reveal that he wished he had been the one to kill the unarmed 12-year-old child himself. "Tamir Rice should have been shot and I am glad he is dead," the Facebook post read, according to the New York Daily News. "I wish I was in the park that day as he terrorized innocent patrons by pointing a gun at them. I am upset I did not get the chance to kill the little criminal [expletive]." The EMS worker, who later argued that he had been hacked, was promptly fired.
