华盛顿-司法部周二宣布，在2014年杀害12岁的塔米尔·赖斯时不会对两名克利夫兰警察提起联邦刑事指控，称枪击案的视频质量太差，无法确定检察官发生了什么事情。
在结案时，该部门结束了对一次引人注目的枪击事件的长期调查，该枪击事件有助于激发黑人生活问题运动，并成为关于警察对包括儿童在内的少数群体使用武力的全国对话的一部分。一份冗长的声明中透露的这一决定并没有宽恕军官的行动，而是说累积的证据不足以支持对联邦刑事民权的起诉。
2014年11月22日，塔米尔（Tamir）在克利夫兰（Cleveland）的一个娱乐中心外玩弹丸枪，当时他是白人的蒂莫西·洛曼（Tiothy Loehmann）枪击身亡。 。一名男子喝啤酒，等待一辆公共汽车打电话给911报告“一个家伙”用枪指着人们后，官员被叫到娱乐中心。呼叫者告诉911调度员，这可能是少年，枪支可能是“假的”，尽管该信息从未传递给警察。
为了在此类情况下提出联邦民权指控，司法部必须证明军官的行为是故意违反法律的，而不仅仅是错误，疏忽或错误判断的结果。联邦检察官在民主党和共和党政府之间会面一直是艰巨的负担，司法部近年来拒绝了在其他引人注目的案件中对警察的刑事指控，包括在纽约市埃里克·加纳（Eric Garner）的死亡中和迈克尔·布朗（Michael Brown）在密苏里州弗格森。
该男孩一家的律师苏博德·钱德拉（Subodh Chandra）在一份声明中说，司法部的“程序受到污染”，并且该家庭已要求检察官提供有关调查过程中所提建议的更多信息。
钱德拉说：“令人难以理解的是，国防部无法认识到一个声称自己在巡逻车的车窗关闭并且是冬天的日子时大喊大叫的军官，” “赖斯一家再次因公平的程序而被骗。”
司法部表示，在这种情况下，在枪击事件发生地区录制的劣质监视录像使检察官无法在射杀之前就确定赖斯是否伸手拿玩具枪。被枪击的两名军官在枪击事件发生后不久告诉当局，赖斯在被枪击前已经伸手拿枪，并被下达多个命令来举手。
但是联邦检察官审查的视频使事件的发生顺序不太清楚。检察官说，没有音频的粒状延时视频“没有显示细节或透视图”，并且摄像机的视线被警察巡逻车挡住了。他们还说，尽管男孩的手臂位置表明他们位于他的腰部附近，“但他的手在视频中不可见，无法从视频中确定他在做什么。”
司法部表示，有7名武力专家-家庭保留了3名，地方当局保留了4名-对案件进行了审查，但他们所依赖的视频质量较差，而且“有争议的观点对此没有多大作用”。该家庭使用的专家说，枪击事件是不合理的，而其他四个人则说这是合理的。
《纽约时报》 10月报道称，该部门已有效关闭了调查，但周二的公告使其正式生效。
不一致的证人证词也使任何起诉变得复杂。据司法部称，两个目击者都没有看到遭遇的一部分，也没有报告听到枪声，他们都没有看到莱斯在枪击事件发生之前所做的一切。
检察官说，在现场对其他三名执法人员的声明中，勒曼“反复并一致地表示”塔米尔在射杀他之前就伸手拿枪。
Loehmann和Garmback都在枪击事件后的声明中说，Loehmann已给Tamir“射击前要举手示意”，而且两个军官都看到他伸手拿武器。检察官说，Loehmann和Garmback是“枪击事件附近”的仅有两名证人。
一个州大陪审团拒绝起诉Loehmann，尽管后来发现他以前被认为“不适合担任职务”之后被解雇。
司法部还在枪击事件发生后不久向其他调查人员的陈述中调查了这些官员是否妨碍司法公正。检察官的结论是，尽管这些陈述包括一些不同的语言，但它们总体上是一致的。而且，由于没有足够的证据证明陈述是不真实的，因此也没有足够的证据证明这些官员试图误导调查人员或阻碍对其行为的调查。
Feds decline charges against officers in Tamir Rice case
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it would not bring federal criminal charges against two Cleveland police officers in the 2014 killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, saying video of the shooting was of too poor a quality for prosecutors to conclusively establish what had happened.
In closing the case, the department brought to an end a long-running investigation into a high-profile shooting that helped galvanize the Black Lives Matter movement and that became part of the national dialogue about police use of force against minorities, including children. The decision, revealed in a lengthy statement, does not condone the officers' actions but rather says the cumulative evidence was not enough to support a federal criminal civil rights prosecution.
Tamir was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland on Nov. 22, 2014, when he was shot and killed by Officer Timothy Loehmann, who is white, seconds after Loehmann and his partner, Officer Frank Garmback, arrived at the scene. The officers were called to the recreation center after a man drinking beer and waiting for a bus had called 911 to report that a “guy” was pointing a gun at people. The caller told a 911 dispatcher that it was probably a juvenile and the gun might be “fake,” though that information was never relayed to the officers.
To bring federal civil rights charges in cases like these, the Justice Department must prove that an officer’s actions willfully broke the law and are not simply the result of a mistake, negligence or bad judgment. It has been a consistently tough burden for federal prosecutors to meet across both Democratic and Republican administrations, with the Justice Department declining criminal charges against police officers in other high-profile cases in recent years, including in the deaths of Eric Garner in New York City and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
In a statement, Subodh Chandra, an attorney for the boy’s family, said the Justice Department’s “process was tainted” and the family has demanded prosecutors provide additional information about recommendations made during the probe.
“It’s beyond comprehension that the Department couldn’t recognize that an officer who claims he shouted commands when the patrol car’s window was closed and it was a winter day is lying,” Chandra said. “The Rice family has been cheated of a fair process yet again.”
In this case, the Justice Department said poor-quality surveillance video recorded in the area where the shooting took place prevented prosecutors from being able to conclusively determine whether Rice was or was not reaching for his toy gun just prior to being shot. The two officers who were investigated told authorities soon after the shooting that Rice was reaching for the gun prior to being shot and was given multiple commands to show his hands.
But the video reviewed by federal prosecutors makes the sequence of events less clear. The grainy time-lapse video, which has no audio, “does not show detail or perspective” and the camera’s view is obstructed by a police patrol car, prosecutors said. In addition, they said, though the positioning of the boy’s arms suggests they were in the vicinity of his waist, “his hands are not visible in the video and it cannot be determined from the video what he was doing.”
The Justice Department says seven use-of-force experts — three retained by the family, four by local authorities — reviewed the case, but the poor quality of the video on which they relied and their “conflicting opinions added little to the case.” The experts used by the family said the shooting was unreasonable while the four others said that it was reasonable.
The New York Times reported in October that the department had effectively shut down the investigation, but Tuesday’s announcement makes it official.
Inconsistent witness statements also complicated any prosecution. Neither of two witnesses who either saw part of the encounter or reported hearing gunshots said they saw exactly what Rice was doing just before the shooting, according to the Justice Department.
In a statement at the scene to three other law enforcement officers, Loehmann “repeatedly and consistently stated” that Tamir was reaching for a gun before he shot him, prosecutors said.
Both Loehmann and Garmback also said in statements after the shooting that Loehmann had given Tamir “multiple commands to show his hands before shooting” and both officers saw him reaching for the weapon. Prosecutors said Loehmann and Garmback were the only two witnesses in the “near vicinity of the shooting.”
A state grand jury had declined to indict Loehmann, though he was later fired after it was discovered he was previously deemed “unfit for duty.”
The Justice Department also investigated whether the officers obstructed justice in statements they made to other investigators soon after the shooting. Prosecutors concluded that though the statements included some different language, they were generally consistent. And since there was not enough evidence to prove the statements were untrue, there was also not enough evidence to prove that the officers sought to mislead investigators or to obstruct a probe into their actions.
