re: Tamir Rice's (Dead KID!)Family Believe No Charges Coming for Two Officers

So the cops rolled up on him like that for no reason? No 911 calls of him pointing a gun at people?

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It's 12 year old with a toy gun. He didn't threaten anyone.

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Yeah c'mon Roger, it is disingenuous to act like a 5'7", 195 lb, 12-yr old is incapable of doing any harm. The gun looks incredibly real. At 12 yrs, 5 months old Rice is in the 97th percentile for both his height and weight - he is the average height of a 15+ yr old child and heavier than most that age.

Now, whether or not that justifies the shooting is not for me to decide, and I believe the threshold for an indictment is there already so this should go to court, but this kid wasn't a legitimate threat given the information the officer had is incorrect.

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So the cops rolled up on him like that for no reason? No 911 calls of him pointing a gun at people?

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This kid's attempt to live the thug life got him killed.

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That cop is a fricking idiot. It is what happens when you give a loser mother fricker a $35k a year job, a gun, and perceived power. A lot of our officers don't have enough sense to get out of the rain; those definitely don't need the amount of discretion that they're given.

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All of this, which is why these cases are so hard to determine IMO. Whether people want to admit it or not, expecting every cop to act in a calm, controlled manner and exercise proper discretion in these events is like expecting every hourly staffer at your local Wal-Mart to have extensive product knowledge or expecting your local Taco Bell to get every order correct. Certainly there are exceptions to the rule, but the risks/rewards of being a cop tend to attract a more unstable and illogical subset of our population and these events will continue to happen until that is changed IMO.

There has to be accountability on both sides. You can't point fake, toy guns at people. End of discussion. In today's climate, "innocent acts" and fooling around will get you killed by a civilian let alone a cop.

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Until you put your life on the line as a police officer, you likely will continue to sit back and take up for stupidity the rest of your life.

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You're right - many of us don't know what it is like to be in the line of duty as an officer. However, if you don't know how you'll react in that kind of situation, perhaps you shouldn't be an officer of the law, no? If the tensions of your job cause you to make rash decisions that result in the shooting death of a kid, shouldn't you bear at least some of the blame?

There are plenty of people on this board who take up for stupidity on a regular basis, but there are others who tend to blindly justify the actions of officers because it is a "scary job." If you can routinely justify unnecessary shootings by stating how tough it is to be an officer, perhaps you (and police officers in general) should look in the mirror and question whether or not you really deserve to wield the power you've been granted.

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Really haven't heard anything that suggests Rice was threatening anyone.

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Oh really?

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In a 9-1-1 call, a caller, who was sitting in a nearby gazebo, reported that someone, possibly a juvenile, was pointing "a pistol" at random people in the Cudell Recreation Center. The caller twice said that the gun was "probably fake," but was unable to identify if the weapon was real or not; the orange barrel markings used to identify toy weapons had been removed.[17] According to police spokesmen, it was initially unclear if that information was relayed to the dispatched officers, Loehmann and Garmback, and it was later revealed that the dispatcher did not elaborate beyond referencing "a gun."[12][18] According to one report, the 9-1-1 responder twice asked whether the boy was black or white[19] before dispatching officers to the park at around 3:30 p.m.[17] The actual recording of the phone call reveals that the 9-1-1 responder asked whether the boy was black or white three times; however, the question was repeated only after the caller continued describing the color of Rice's clothing.[20] The caller then left the gazebo, and Rice sat down in it sometime later.[18]

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Notice it says pointing NOT brandishing.

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It is tragic that the boy died,

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How tragic? For the family, sure, but for society it's probably a plus.

Kid was theatening people with a gun he specifically altered to look real.

Only a matter of time before he got a real one and put a bullet in someone that "disrespected" him. After making 3 or 4 babies with hoodrat mommas.

People are acting as if he was like this
Innocently frolicking through the park with a brightly colored pop gun.

It was more this


With this


Do normal kids go around harassing innocent passersby?

This kid wasn't playing war in the park with his friends.

This was practice for mugging in the future.

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How tragic? For the family, sure, but for society it's probably a plus.

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We don't live in a society where we get to lawfully make that assumption - or at least we shouldn't live in such a society.

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Only a matter of time before he got a real one and put a bullet in someone that "disrespected" him. After making 3 or 4 babies with hoodrat mommas.

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The equivalent argument would be to remove the driving privileges of all those who speed in excess of 10 MPH over the posted speed limit. It is only a matter of time before you're in an accident and you could take someone's life, so why wait?

You really think it's normal to threaten people in the park with a gun made to look real? You don't think this kid would have had a real gun if he had access to one?


Look, the police did an AWFUL job on this and the kids death could easily have been prevented. But some of you are acting like this was a young Neil Degrasse Tyson on the verge of discovering the key to dark matter. This was a future criminal, if statistical and objective evidence can be used.

It's the wrong person to paint as the example of your movement, just like Michael Brown. Another thug. Why do people want to make thugs the faces of their movement?