Pictured are Samaria Rice, the mother of slain 12-year-old Cleveland police shooting victim Tamir Rice, and Tamir Rice himself
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 4.5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio– The White Cleveland cop that gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014 was fired Tuesday by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, and his partner, also a White policeman, was handed a 10-day suspension, community activists applauding the firing of the killer cop and expressing dismay over the leniency in discipline of what they say is his partner in crime.
"We are pleased that Timothy Loehmann, the policeman that killed Tamir, was fired, but we are disappointed that his partner, veteran Frank Garmback, escaped with a lenient 10-day suspension," said community activist and Black on Black Crime Inc President Alfred Porter Jr." Activists have fought this case since its inception because we knew from day one that the cops were wrong."
Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the Cleveland-based Imperial Women Coalition, agreed.
"It is a victory but the ultimate victory comes when the police in this case are prosecuted, found guilty and imprisoned, and when true systemic police reforms relative to excessive force and other police misconduct, locally, countywide and nationally materialize," said Coleman, also a local journalist who edits ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com, and who trained as a journalist for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper.
Police were summoned to the Cudell Park and Recreation Center on the city's largely White west side on Nov. 22, 2014 following a foiled 9-1-1 call to police dispatchers that a child was carrying a likely toy gun, a toy gun in fact of which was later revealed.
Rookie Timothy Loehmann fired the deadly bullet that killed the Black boy after Loehmann and his partner, Frank Garmback, arrived at the scene and zoomed in on Tamir in less than two seconds, Garmback at the wheel of the police cruiser, precautionary action be damned.
Loehmann, however, was not fired for killing Tamir but for lying on his job application about discipline in another city as a former cop, his recent discipline in Cleveland that is more likely to stick than any discipline relative to excessive force.
Greater Cleveland arbitrators, data show, are prone to overturn discipline involving excessive force and Cleveland police, an example being supervisor discipline relative to the 2012 police killings of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams, 30, and Timothy Russell, 43, both gunned down in cold blood by 13 non-Black cops slinging 137 bullets.
Ongoing protests erupted nationally and locally in 2014 following the shooting of Rice, and racial unrest continues to mount against a largely White police department now under a consent decree for police reforms between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice, a consent decree despised by a police union that is use to doing as it pleases.
The Cleveland Police Patromen's Association, led by outspoken union head Steve Loomis, has been staunchly behind Loehmann and Garmback, Loomis saying the kid pulled the toy gun when police arrived, though no such evidence exist to prove such a claim, the union vowing Tuesday to fight Tuesday's discipline of the two White cops via the grievance procedure and arbitration.
A 9-1-1 dispatcher that answered the call from a bystander who allegedly said Tamir was pointing a likely toy gun when police anxiously arrived was suspended in March for eight days and an off-duty cop for two days.
Neither the dispatcher nor the off-duty cop did the killing and both were disciplined by Police Chief Calvin Williams, who is Black, Constance Hollinger the dispatcher at issue, and William Cunningham, the off duty cop just simply on the premises, but allegedly without permission, city officials have said.
Loehmann and Garmback were not indicted on criminal charges with the help of since ousted Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, his successor, Michael O'Malley, under pressure by the Rice family and community activists to bring the case before another county grand jury for possible indictments.
Rice's mother, Samaria Rice, has been in the forefront of community demands that the police involved in her son's killing face criminal proceedings.
Loomis and his Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association are President Donald Trump supporters, Loomis having pushed his union colleagues to endorse Trump for president last year, which met criticism from the Cleveland NAACP, Black leaders, and grassroots community activists, among others.
The controversial Loomis, also criticized for backing wrongdoing fellow cops no matter what they do, was a key speaker at a pro-Trump rally held earlier this year in downtown Cleveland, one of several protests held in a dozen cities across Ohio that day that garnered counter protests in Cleveland and elsewhere.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 4.5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.