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This remains a five-alarm fire. We have just days left in our Fall Campaign and the numbers we’re seeing are not good. This is terrifying for us, especially when everything we cherish is on the ballot just one week from now.
EXTENDED VIDEO Tamir Rice shooting incidentFull video of Tamir Rice shooting incident. CLEVELAND - Cleveland Police have released the full video of the November 22 ...
(Warning: The video above contains disturbing images.)
Newly released footage of the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November shows Cleveland police officers delaying first aid to Rice while he was still alive and tackling and handcuffing Rice's sister as she attempted to reach her wounded brother.
An extended surveillance video from the Cudell Recreation Center, which captured the incident, was obtained by the Northeast Ohio Media Group on Wednesday after city officials initially refused to release it. Other outlets received the video on Thursday.
The footage shows Rice's 14-year-old sister, Tajai, attempting to run to her brother's aid as he lay bleeding in the snow, only to be intercepted by two officers--including Timothy Loehmann, who shot Tamir--who pin her down on the ground, handcuff her, and place her in the backseat of their cruiser.
Loehmann and the other officer, Frank Garmback, are also shown refusing to administer aid to Rice for several minutes after the shooting. Neither moves to help the boy until a third man, identified by police as an FBI agent who was in the area, enters the frame and seems to attend to Rice for the first time in the four minutes that have passed. Paramedics arrive eight minutes after the shooting.
Walter Madison, an attorney representing the Rice family, called the video "shocking and outrageous."
"This has to be the cruelest thing I've ever seen," Madison said. He added that the officers displayed "overwhelming indifference" to Rice.
"No one thinks that it's appropriate to try to save him," Madison said. "The first person who does is not affiliated with the Cleveland police department. This is the level of service that makes people very upset and distrustful of law enforcement."
Loehmann shot Rice within seconds of pulling up in front of the boy as he played with a toy gun in a city park on November 22. Rice died hours later. The video confirms statements previously made by Rice's mother, Samaria Rice, who said at a December 8 press conference that her daughter was handcuffed and detained while trying to help Tamir, and that officers refused to help him while he was still alive. Tajai Rice also made similar statements on NBC's Today show in December, telling host Lester Holt, "I ran to the gazebo, and I couldn't get there all the way to him, because the officer attacked me, threw me on the ground, tackled me on the ground, put me in handcuffs, and put me in the back of the police car, right next to his body."
Loehmann was hired by the Cleveland police department after failing a written test to become a deputy with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's department, as well as forces in Akron, Euclid, and Parma Heights, records show. His action in the video "really explains why," Madison said. "This is not the professional standard we would expect or deserve, and the city of Cleveland put him in the position to allow this to happen."
On June 8, 2014, white, anti-government, tea party supporters shot and killed two Las Vegas police officers. Conservative media was conspicuously silent.
On Saturday, Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot and killed NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos as they sat in their patrol car, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Brinsley, who had made "very anti-police" statements on Instagram, was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Police spokesmen and conservative media were quick to blame the murders on the widespread protests of police killings of unarmed black males such as Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, and others.
NYPD Union Head Whines: Mayor de Blasio Starting a $&#^ing Revolution!The head of the New York City Police Union accuses NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio of running a “revolution” out of city hall... This clip ...
None was more outspoken than failed presidential candidate, and former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani. On "Fox & Friends Sunday," Giuliani blamed the officers deaths on "four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police."
GIULIANI: We've had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police. I don't care how you want to describe it, that's what those protests are all about. The protests are being embraced, the protests are being encouraged, the protests, even the ones that don't lead to violence, and a lot of them lead to violence, all lead to a conclusion: the police are bad, the police are racists. That is completely wrong. Actually the people who do the most for the Black community in America are the police.
Never mind that President Obama called for anyone who protests these shootings and grand jury decisions to "do so peacefully." Never mind that the president has said that there's "no excuse" for violence. The irony of a black president is that his most innocuous utterances that America still has racial problems are interpreted by conservatives as radical and "anti-white."
Never mind that a majority of cop killers have been white. Conservatives blame police killings of, and violence against blacks, on black lawlessness run amok.
Never mind that the #BlackLivesMatter movement has condemned the murders of officers Liu and Ramos. Conservatives blame the movement collectively for the murder of officers Liu and Ramos.
Never mind that Brinsley had his own run in with NYPD last year. Never mind that Brinsley had a long history of mental illness. Conservatives will blame the #BlackLivesMatter movement for his crimes.
This conservative penchant for collective blaming was absent on June 8, when Jerad and Amanda Miller -- both white -- shot and killed Las Vegas police officers Igor Soldo and Alyn Beck, as they had lunch at a strip mall. The couple dragged the officers' bodies from their booth, draped Beck's body with the yellow "Gasden flag" popular with the tea party movement, and pinned a note to Soldo's body reading "This is the beginning of the revolution." The couple stole the officers guns and ammunition, and fled to a local Walmart. Jerad Miller was shot and killed by police. Amanda Miller died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Reports surfaced of Jerad Miller's anti-government posts to Facebook, and Alex Jones "Infowars" message board -- including a post titled, "The Police (to kill or not to kill)." The Millers camped out at Cliven Bundy's ranch, where Bundy's "militia" pointed guns at sheriff's deputy's and threatened to kill federal officers. Jerad Miller was even interviewed at the ranch, before being booted for his "radical" views.
Conservatives were less than outraged. Instead of blaming Cliven Bundy, Alex Jones, or the tea party movement, they tried to paint the Millers as radical leftists. Conservative media refused to call the Las Vegas shooting terrorism.
Perhaps Ismaaiyl Brinsley is just a cop killer of a different color, as far as conservative media is concerned.
Cleveland Browns receiver Andrew Hawkins says he should not have to apologize for wearing a T-shirt that called for "Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford," two Ohio victims of recent police killings.
Hawkins' shirt, which he sported while walking onto the field before Sunday's game against the Cincinnati Bengals, spurred ire from the head of the Cleveland Police Union, who called the statement "pathetic" and demanded an apology from the Browns organization.
"I have a 2-year-old little boy," Hawkins said during a passionate press interview on Monday. "That little boy is my entire world. The number one reason for me wearing the T-shirt was the thought of what happened to Tamir Rice happening to my little Austin scares the living hell out of me."
A Cleveland police killed the 12-year-old Rice in November as he was carrying an air gun in a public park; the coroner has ruled his death a homicide. Crawford, a father of two, was shot and killed in August by a local police officer in a Walmart in Beavercreek while holding a BB gun. In both instances, the officers had allegedly perceived the guns were real rifles.
"My heart was broken for the parents of Tamir [Rice] and John Crawford, knowing they had to live that nightmare of a reality," he continued, adding that he "made the conscious decision to wear the T-shirt."
Responding more directly to the police criticisms, Hawkins said: "My wearing of the T-shirt wasn't a stance against every police officer or every police department [...] My wearing of the T-shirt was a stance against wrong individuals doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason to innocent people."
He added that justice is "a right that every American should have, and also justice should be the goal for every American."
"Ultimately," he said, "it means fair treatment."
You can watch the entire press statement below.
Browns' Andrew Hawkins explains why he wore a 'Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford' T-shirt atCleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins gives a statement on why wore a “Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford” ...
Hawkins' statement has followed similar actions from a number of professional athletes, who have also voiced solidarity with the growing outrage over police violence against black people and what is seen as a broken system of justice in the United States.
Following the police backlash, the Browns released a statement saying the team "respect[s] our players' rights to project their support and bring awareness to issues that are important to them if done so in a responsible manner."
On Tuesday, Crawford's family filed suit against Walmart arguing that the retail giant was at fault for Crawford's killing because the store had left the BB gun, which resembles a rifle, unlocked and easily accessible.