An utter disregard for the lives of the city’s black residents

December 29, 2015 6:59 PM

Tamir Rice of Cleveland [NYT] would be alive today had he been a white 12-year-old playing with a toy gun in just about any middle-class neighborhood in the country on the afternoon of Nov. 22, 2014.

But Tamir, who was shot to death by a white police officer that day, had the misfortune of being black in a poor area of Cleveland, where the police have historically behaved as an occupying force that shoots first and asks questions later. To grow up black and male in such a place is to live a highly circumscribed life, hemmed in by forces that deny your humanity and conspire to kill you.

posted by standardasparagus (3 comments total)

Maybe slap some quotation marks on that, to indicate it is a direct quote from the NYT Editorial.

Reason:No Justice for Tamir Rice: Jury Will Not Indict Cops Who Killed Him

The only thing that matters is whether Loehmann thought he was justified in killing Rice, and the law is such that no one is qualified to second-guess Loehmann’s decision except Loehmann himself. This is the level of deference we extend to police decision-making, and it is the reason the quest for justice in Rice’s unconscionable murder was doomed from the start.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:13 PM on December 29, 2015

Tamir Rice was killed by white America's irrational fear of black boys
posted by Artw at 7:13 PM on December 29, 2015

Realize this truth: White privilege is being able to ask hypothetical questions -- " what if the person was white?" -- while anxious and frightened Black folks have to seriously figure out how to practice legitimate forms of self-defense and keep our children safe from the very REAL possibility of being killed.

Statement from County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty on the decision of the Grand Jury in the Tamir Rice case: "If we put ourselves in the victim’s shoes, as prosecutors and detectives try to do, it is likely that Tamir — whose size made him look much older and who had been warned that his pellet gun might get him into trouble that day "

How do people such as these get and keep their jobs? And what is to be done when, after the deaths of Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and Rice, evidence suggests that prosecutors can’t be trusted to hold police accountable?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:14 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]