Phillip Holloway, the legal analyst for CNN, claims that the police shooting of Tamir Rice was a “lawful tragedy.” But first of all, he ignores facts that are not convenient to his claim, such as the fact that Officer Loehmann was not qualified to carry a gun and exercise the use of force. Secondly of all, Mr. Holloway ignores the fact that in a similar case, a white woman who brandished a BB gun that looked like a real gun is still alive today.
But even if Mr. Holloway is right, that is simply proof that the laws which enabled the cops to shoot Tamir Rice and escape an indictment need to be changed. First of all, in all potential crimes involving police officers, prosecutors need to disqualify themselves and have someone else handle the case. This is because any prosecutor has to have a good working relationship with the local police departments in order to secure convictions. In Prosecutor Tim McGinty’s chilling words, “We don’t second-guess cops,” we see that at play. In his view, preserving a good working relationship with the police officers who might be called to testify in other cases is more important than securing justice for Tamir Rice. The fact that there is such a blatant conflict of interest means that he should have disqualified himself.
Secondly of all, we should pass laws which ban prosecutors from picking grand juries in officer-involved shootings, like California has already done. This is because this process is too easily rigged. The Ferguson grand jury, for instance, had 9 whites and 3 blacks. We do not know the racial makeup of the Tamir Rice grand jury, but that only makes the matter worse — the culture of secrecy that is surrounding the case. I can’t speak for other states, but here in Missouri, quotas in jury selection are banned because it could too easily be applied the other way. But the process can easily be rigged to create a Jim Crow-style jury which simply rubberstamps what the Police State wants. The parallel between Ferguson and Jim Crow was chilling, and shows how little progress we have made since the Civil Rights Movement.
Thirdly of all, we should require cops to live in the areas in which they serve. Around where I live, this is the case, and this is one of the reasons why there are far fewer complaints about the police. Police who actually live in the neighborhood would have known that Tamir Rice was not a threat to anyone. Where I live, in a rural area, we are covered by our local sheriff’s department as well as three Highway Patrol officers who are familiar with the area and who know when something is out of place and when it is not.
In many other places, officer-involved shootings are non-existent. There are initiatives afoot by some of our police to study these methods and learn better ways of deescalating conflicts. These should be stepped up; the death of Tamir Rice and the lack of response by the police and the criminal justice system adds to the urgency of these initiatives.
Mr. Holloway discusses the Supreme Court ruling which governs police use of force:
The case specifically provides that any use of force incident must be "objectively reasonable" under the totality of the circumstances and that "[t]he "reasonableness" of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight." It also clarified "the 'reasonableness' inquiry in an excessive force case is an objective one: the question is whether the officers' actions are 'objectively reasonable' in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation."
The problem is that no objectively reasonable officer would have engaged in the use of force two seconds after arriving at the scene. No officer can assess a scene they are called to within two seconds and make a reasonable decision about whether or not to use force under this standard. Here is the information the officers were given:
The dispatcher advised the officers "Cudell Rec Center... there's a black male sitting on a swing pulling a gun out of his pants and pointing it at people."
The fact that someone is sitting on a swingset at a rec center means that the subject in question is likely a child — for someone to be 5’7” and 195 pounds at 12 is unusual, but not unheard of. The gun in question, therefore, is likely to be a toy gun. Secondly of all, the police got a single call — if there had been an active shooting, there would have been a lot more than one call. Thirdly of all, the police pulled to within four to nine feet of Rice — again, not reasonable. A reasonable cop would have paused to assess the situation first. If Rice had really been an active shooter, rather than a kid playing around with a toy gun, they would have seen a lot of dead bodies on the ground seeing that this was a place where a lot of kids were playing. The fact that there were no dead bodies lying around was overlooked in the cops’ mad rush to channel John Wayne. So under Mr. Holloway’s own standards, the officers actions were not objectively reasonable. Given Rice’s unusually large size and weight, it is totally possible for one to initially think that he was older. But even there, if the cops had simply paused to assess the situation before moving in, they would have seen that there were no dead bodies and no active shooter.
Rice was given no chance to surrender at all. It took Officer Holloway two seconds to make the decision to use force. When I was a 12 year old kid, I was frequently off in my own world at times. So, when a strange car pulls up to where I am playing, I might have seen it pull up, but not realize it was headed for me until it was too late. Most children that age do not understand the meaning of actions and consequences — this is because the part of the human brain that associates them does not grow until later on in life. So, a reasonable 12 year old might not have understood that a cop might think that they were playing with a real gun.
Mr. Holloway continues:
To suggest that police, before using force, should carefully interview anyone to determine their age, family circumstances or other factors they can't possibly be expected to know is a standard that no one can live by, cops or civilians.
Likewise, we can't expect the police to dodge the first bullet or two before allowing them to use deadly force to protect themselves or others.
That is a straw man — the problem is that the police acted recklessly at the very least. If Rice had been a real killer on the loose and a cop car had pulled 4-9 feet in front of him, he would have shot at least one, if not both of the cops. The fact that he did not should have given the cops pause. And we can’t expect the police to dodge the first bullet or two if they act in the kind of reckless manner that these two did.
The Scottish police, by contrast with ours, focus on deescalating conflicts. This works even in the case of dangerously armed criminals. Around 98% of their officers do not carry guns, and there is an uproar over the fact that 2% of them do. I could not find the last time there was an officer-involved shooting in Scotland doing several different Google searches. And no Scottish officer has been killed in the line of duty since 1994.