By Meg Langford
In memory of Tamir Rice, his story is being told in a groundbreaking new book that collects lynching stories, starting in the late 1800’s and continuing up through the horrific events of 2014-2015. While understandably incomplete—for it is simply impossible to find out the true stories of the thousands that have been lynched during the history of the United States—there is no other book that creates as complete a compendium of the racial violence and brutality which constitute the tragic and often hidden dark side of the American experience.
THE TOO SHORT LIFE OF TAMIR
He was twelve. He was just twelve years old. He was a little boy, doing what all kids his age do: he was at the park where he loved to play, fooling around with a toy gun, sometimes acting like a bigshot … then almost immediately bored again, sticking it in his pants and plopping down on a park bench, trying to think of what interesting thing he might do next.
Within seconds, he would be dead.
His name was Tamir Rice. And here is the bitter irony of hindsight: this child playing imaginary cops and robbers seemed to be evenly matched, because the enemy behaved about like a twelve year old would act in such a situation, except for that the Cleveland Police Department had made the mistake of issuing this manchild a deadly weapon.
I have said previously, and will say again now, that nothing in this book is meant to be an indictment against police officers writ large. Hundreds of thousands of police officers, from sea to shining sea, take their duties seriously, perform them excellently, do everything they can to foster good relations within the community--and most importantly, put their lives on the line for our safety, on a daily basis.
That said, as is the case so often in this book, these cops screwed it up completely. In fact, the Cleveland Police Department screwed it up on every possible level, from dispatcher to middle management right up to the police union. Let’s list the errors in judgment on the part of the Cleveland PD that cost poor Tamir Rice his life. I will even go so far as to say--because I believe the evidence bears it out—that more than just poor judgment was at play in this tragedy. At the heart of this homicide was a trigger happy cop whose best plan was to shoot first, and ask questions later.
The memo shows the officer who shot Tamir—the man who murdered the boy—to be weepy, an emotional wreck, and incompetent with equipment, particularly the deadly kind. On a trip to a store to get some of the young recruit’s equipment which had just come in, Loehmann began sobbing so badly he could not go into the store. When his mentor officer took him for a bite to eat, the hysterical recruit made some very bizarre comments: “Maybe I should quit.” “I have no friends.” “I’ve cried every day for four months.” And my personal favorite: “I only hang out with 73 year old priests.”
And what the hell is with the psych eval that Loehmann had to take, in order to get hired by the Cleveland PD? I’m thinking it was the rigorous intellectual equivalent of those old art school ads that asked “Can You Draw Winky?”—you remember the ones that used to appear on cereal boxes with funny names like Wheatina and Maypo and Twinkles and Pep and Corn-fetti? For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, these lures to send money in for a correspondence course in drawing featured cloyingly sweet animals with double entendre names like Cuddles and Winky and Tiny and Spunky; if you drew them, you had a chance to enroll in the school. I’m thinkin’ that’s the kind of scam psych eval Timmy Loehmann passed.
A Sergeant Greg Tinnirello, who worked with Timothy Loehmann when he was trying to become an officer for the Independence, Ohio Police Department, became so worried about the crying recruit that he even asked Loehmann if “he was thinking about hurting himself”. Tinnirello went so far as to contact Loehmann’s mother, who was not surprised about what she heard. Tinnirello wrote in his report, “She informed me that as Ptl. Loehmann was going through the Cleveland Heights Police Academy, his study papers would be soaked in tears nightly for three months, because of problems with his girlfriend.” And elsewhere in the report, Tinnirello wrote: “As we talked about being emotionally ready for duty and the events of the morning, Ptl. Loehmann became agitated. He stated to me, as if he was thinking out loud, ‘WHAT I WANT IS FOR YOU TO SHUT UP.’ Ptl Loehmann wasn’t even looking at me when he made the statement and seemed to be distracted, as if the statement came out under stress.”
This is the man that Cleveland Police would later decide was capable of carrying a lethal weapon, of making life and death decisions in a heartbeat.
And last but not least, Tamir Rice’s killer was also an opportunistic liar, who bent the rules and manipulated his own stories and versions to fit what his superiors wanted to hear. Loehmann could possibly have gotten over the “distracted and weepy” part—apparently he was getting over a romantic crisis, and not very well—and he possibly could have improved his marksmanship. But the lying and manipulating? Read the excerpted memo at the link above, and you will find yourself doubting every single thing that Officer Loehmann said in relation to the shooting of Tamir Rice.
Here is an extended excerpt from that report:
EMOTIONAL IMMATURITY
“Ptl. Loehmann’s inability to perform basic functions as instructed, and his inability to function because of a personal situation at home with an on again off again girlfriend leads one to believe that he would not be able to substantially cope, or make good decisions … This ongoing personal relationship should not have personally consumed him that he would not be able to follow simple direction, especially after being given a reasonable amount of time to collect himself.
CIRCUMVENTING DIRECTION:
It appears from the pattern developing within our short time frame with Ptl. Loehmann that he often feels that, when told to do something, that those instructions are optional, and that he can manipulate them if he so feels it better serves him … he just appears to have the mindset that if he thinks he knows better, then that is the course he follows.
RECOMMENDATION
Due to his dangerous loss of composure during live range training and his inability to handle personal stress, I do not believe Ptl. Loehmann shows the personal maturity needed to work in our employment. Unfortunately, in law enforcement, there are times when instructions need to be followed to the letter, and I am under the impression, that Ptl. Loehmann, under certain circumstances, will not react in the way instructed. … For these reasons, I am recommending that he be released from the employment of the city of Independence. I do not believe that time, nor training, will be able to correct these deficiencies.
It is surreal that this man got a badge and a gun from another police department after his shameful departure from the Independence Police Department. The Cleveland Police Department should have done a decent background check before they hired him. Had the least bit of caution, responsibility, protocol, or common sense been exercised during the hiring process, there is no doubt in my mind that Tamir would be alive today. It is a simple but tragic truth: Tamir Rice’s blood is on their collective hands.
But give him a job they did. And a badge, and a gun. But only after Timothy Loehmann had applied and been turned down by Akron PD, Euclid PD, Parma Heights PD, and the New York Police Department. Also, Loehmann took a stab at becoming the sheriff of Cuyahoga County. He took a test and scored 46 out of 100. 70 points is failing.
But all of this didn’t stop Cleveland from hiring him. After Tamir was dead, they admitted that they hadn’t looked at his personnel files. Why? Because, according to police Sgt. Pillow, they “previously had no policies about reviewing personnel files.” They say they are going to change that, though. In light of everything.
Oh, in case you are wondering about Loehmann’s partner: Loehmann's partner, Frank Garmback, had been sued in federal court for use of excessive force. According to the lawsuit brought against him and the Cleveland Police Department, on August 7th, 2010, Tamela Eaton returned to her home after work and then called the police about towing a car that was parked in front of her driveway. She did not know that two officers were already in the area, searching for possible robbery suspects in an unrelated incident. When Tamela saw the police preparing to arrest a male passerby, Tamela mistakenly thought that the police were going to arrest the man for parking in front of her house. When she tried to explain to the police that she did not want him arrested (not realizing the confusion), the argument escalated and, in the words of the lawsuit, “Garmback rushed Eaton and placed her in a chokehold, tackled her to the ground, twisted her wrist and began hitting her body.” His partner, Officer Guerra, rushed over and proceeded to punch Tamela Eaton in the face multiple times. There is no video of the incident, but the city clearly felt that the accusation had enough merit to shell out $100,000 in settlement.
But back to the death of Tamir Rice,
2.) THE DISPATCHER botched it. Training, training, training. These dispatchers are the first line of communication in a police crisis, and the importance of what they do is not to be underrated. Just because they don’t carry a weapon does not change the fact that civilian lives lie in their hands. And there is no clearer example of this than the 911call made by a concerned citizen about the boy he saw in the park: yes, there was someone in the park with a gun, but the caller went out of his way to repeatedly emphasize that the gun might very well be a toy and that Tamir might have been just a kid. It is worth noting that the 911 caller was NOT hysterical, and the 911 caller even stopped at the beginning of the call to exchange pleasantries:“Hey, how are you?” was how he started out his call to the operator. Clearly, this did not have the almost crazed tone of some of the people who call 911. “Hey, how are you?” Not exactly the tone of a person in crisis. Nor was the caller trying to hide from Tamir, or run from the park. He sat on a park bench, watching the boy. And the caller also made sure to note that he thought, from his observations, that the person in the park he was calling about could have been a juvenile, and the gun a toy. Had these two simple but crucial pieces of information been passed along to the police officers, Tamir might be alive today.
Here is an excerpt from an article in the Daily Kos, expansively entitled “Whoever failed to pass on that Tamir Rice’s gun was fake is the Second Worst Person In The World” by Christian Dern:
“Last week, Cleveland officials revealed that the 911 operator who took the original call was Constance Hollinger, and the dispatcher who sent police to the scene was Beth Mandl. It's not immediately clear who failed to pass the information on. WEWS-TV quotes city officials as seemingly putting the blame on Hollinger. However, WOIO says that Hollinger transferred the call to Mandl via a computer screen--raising the possibility that Mandl may have simply failed to pass all of that information on to police.
Here’s what we do know about Beth Mandl, police dispatcher, though: she has an arrest record herself. She was arrested in September 2008 for carrying a concealed weapon. She took it into a bar with her, where she had some cocktails. Nothing ever came of the arrest, though. Except for the police did hire her to work as a dispatcher shortly thereafter. Maybe this was her innovative form of networking.
UPDATE: During the time that “The Little Book of Lynching, 2nd edition” is in its final editing stages, a 224 page report has been issued which claims that the information about Tamir’s age and the possibility of the gun being a fake gun was never relayed from Hollinger to Mandl. Hollinger lawyered up, thanks to help from her union, and she remains mute on why she did not send on these crucial details which may have saved Tamir’s life. But I left the above prose intact, because I think the world needs to know that Beth Mandl is no prize either—at least, not a person whom we should have working in law enforcement, since laws apparently don’t mean much to her, or apply to her.
Further investigation has provided us with more information about Ms. Hollinger, who didn’t think it was at all important or worth mentioning to the police that the 911 caller had repeatedly mentioned that the gun might be fake, and that the person carrying it might have been a juvenile. Apparently, a supervisor noted in her personnel filed that “Hollinger tends to be abrupt, and disconnect the caller when they are providing additional info.” And yes, I understand that perhaps Hollinger is anxious to get what is inherently urgent news to the next person in the chain. But modern technology makes it simply a matter of pushing a button to relay preliminary information to the dispatcher, while keeping the 911 caller on the line, so as to glean more information that might help save lives on the scene, and give the officers a better idea of what they are walking into. And the experts agree: Seth Stoughton is a former police officer who now teaching at the University of South Carolina School of Law. His criticism of Hollinger is clear: “A witness’s description of a weapon as ‘probably fake’ combined with a description of the suspect as a juvenile , is very different than a description of an adult holding a firearm that the witness is sure is real. Officers may take a very different approach.”
Hmm. A person taking 911 calls is not interested in getting all the info that the witness/victim/911 caller has to offer? Let me put it crassly: her ass should be fired. And here is one last important detail, in case you don’t already have profound doubts about the hiring and firing policies of the Cleveland Police Department: Hollinger had worked previously as a police dispatcher, and she had been fired from that job. She had already proved herself incapable and untrustworthy at the job of police dispatch, yet the same people who hired a dishonest and emotionally immature officer also hired an incompetent and law-breaking 911 operator.
I say shame on you, Ms. Hollinger. Some of Tamir’s blood is on your hands.
3.) POLICE PROCEDURE NIGHTMARE: Forget public opinion. I get it, they are rioting in the streets. A lot of pre-judgmental people don’t care what the public thinks or has to say. So let’s consult the experts. Well, experts from all over the country have seen the video of the shooting and they agree: proper police procedure was repeatedly ignored. One has to wonder if the two officers would have ignored protocol so completely, had they known that a community center security camera would be capturing their actions for the entire world to see. It is worth nothing that at the time of the Tamir Rice shooting, none of the Cleveland PD officers or cruisers were equipped with dash cams.
Specifically, surveillance footage shows a cruiser driven by sixth-year Officer Frank Garmback cut across the grass in front of a gazebo at the West Side Cleveland Park and roll within a few feet of Tamir; two seconds later, first-year officer Timothy Loehmann is shooting Tamir from his open passenger door.
This, incidentally, is the same garbage that transpired in Ferguson. Even the Ferguson officer in question admits as much. Rather than interacting with the individuals at a safe distance, in both the Michael Brown shooting and the Tamir Rice shooting, the officers sped right up to the suspect and engaged. Even from a purely self-preservationist point of view on the part of the officer, this makes no sense. You are driving right up to a guy holding a gun? That action puts the officer in clear and present danger; the cop is practically asking to be shot. This reckless behavior could not be more opposite the procedure and protocol in which officers are trained. But let’s hear from several experts:
David Klinger, 30 year veteran of the LAPD, as well as professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, had this to say about the Tamir Rice shooting: “The issue is that the vehicle, the police vehicle, never should have been there. And we have a problem in American policing, and that is that in many places, officers get too close to people too fast. And if you read the transcript of the Darren Wilson testimony, and then you piece everything together with other testimony, that’s where I think the situation went sideways … Darren Wilson got too close too soon. And we could have a long discussion about this, but what it boils down to is this was a tactical failure on the driver officer. I do not understand why he put the other officer and himself so close. . .The problem is that vehicle never should have been so close and therefore, the officer never should have been so close. They should have found a position of cover at some distance, got out, addressed with verbal commands … This is a tragedy for everyone …
David Thomas, 20 year veteran police officer, PhD in Forensic Psychology, and Senior Research Fellow for The Police Foundation, watched the footage of the killing, and was unequivocal: "The tactics were very poor. If the driver would have stopped a distance away, so that the primary officer wasn't right there to get involved in shooting, it may have played out differently. The Cleveland officers should have been trained to take cover when dealing with someone who might be armed, and to tell the individual to drop the weapon.”
Hubert Williams, 30-year veteran police officer and former president of the Police Foundation, was appalled: “Garmback should not have pulled the police car so close to where Tamir was standing if they believed he was armed -- as they were told by a 9-1-1 dispatcher. By doing so, Garmback put Loehmann in a more vulnerable position to be shot by Tamir, in turn making it more likely that he would fire his own gun in self-defense. If a guy has a real gun, you're definitely pulling into the line of fire. .. approaching Tamir from a distance would have not only put the officers at an advantage for firing at Tamir if he was a threat to them, but also would have given them an opportunity to communicate with the boy. It occurred too soon, and that's going to be the biggest problem that the city of Cleveland is going to be faced with."
The evidence is clear, and the opinions are in accord: in spite of Cleveland Police Union President Jeff Follmer's lame defense of Tamir’s killers, nonetheless, the best and brightest in the field of policing agree that both officers’ behavior was unacceptable, unprofessional, and resulted in the death of a child.
4.) SHOOT FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER: The Tamir Rice killing is eerily reminiscent of the John Crawford killing, and these two killings are sadly similar to countless shootings that happen in this country every year. The cops claim that they tell the suspect to put down their weapon, the suspect does not comply, and so they are left with no choice but to shoot. But the ugly fact is this: they did not give Tamir any time at all to comply. The video of the killing does not lie: 1/1/2 to 2 seconds pass from the arrival of the police car to the shooting of the boy. Just as in the case of the John Crawford Walmart shooting, the command for Tamir to show his hands or, in the case of the Walmart shooting “drop you weapon”, was almost concomitant with the shooting. It was practically synchronized.
Science has long known that the human brain cannot process more than about six syllables per second—and that is if the listener is attuned to the message. So if Officer Loehmann said “Drop your Weapon” three times, it would have taken Tamir about two or three seconds to even understand:
a.) That the shouting was directed at him and
b.) What he, Tamir, was supposed to do.
In fact, even the first command, “Drop your weapon” would have taken Tamir about a full second to comprehend, and to understand that it was meant for him to hear. This crucial one second does not then take into account the reaction time it would take for him to comply. In fact, since Tamir didn’t think he was doing anything wrong—playing with a toy gun—it might have slowed his understanding of what was being asked, and of whom it was being asked. Tamir might have thought, for a crucial split-second, that they were talking to someone else. You don’t have to have a fancy-ass PhD level education in Communication (which I do have, by the way), to understand what is so very painfully obvious just from watching the video: The cops open fire at almost the same moment that they opened their mouths.
5. Once Tamir was on the ground dying, they made no attempt to administer first aid. Four minutes would pass before anybody arrived to try and save the boy’s life. What else is there to say about that?
6. When Tamir’s sister went running to him, because she saw her brother had been shot, she was slammed to the ground and handcuffed. Later, his mother was put in the back of a cruiser.
Sadly, for the Cleveland Police Department, this is just another day. Business as usual. We spoke earlier in the chapter of the folly, the screw-up, the egregious and tragic nightmare which was the decision to hire Loehmann in the first place. He is a childish, immature, and emotionally retarded man. And he is a liar. And yet, somebody made the decision to hire him, after a nearby police department had the good sense to fire him.
And not surprisingly, the local Cleveland Police Union rushed in to vigorously defend the cop who killed a child. Rather than doing his sworn duty to make policing safer by getting the dangerous cops out, head of the local union Jeff Folmer decided that lying was the best approach, when speaking publicly about the Tamir Rice killing.
FOLLMER: The officers were begging and pleading for this young man keep his hands up.
REPORTER: So it wasn’t just a one time “Put your hands up!”? It was an extended thing?
FOLLMER: No, they knew where that gun was located …they’re telling him to keep his hands up. . they did not want his hand to go down to his waistband. They wanted—one of the partners probably would have gone up and taken the gun out of his waistband. That’s how we do things. There was a lot of begging and pleading to keep his hands up. (emphasis added)
Follmer had seen the Tamir Rice killing video at this point. So we know that on top of him being insensitive, and a meathead, he is a liar. Who thinks we are stupid, and can’t watch the video for ourselves, and see that Follmer is apparently constitutionally incapable of telling the truth. On a last note, it is interesting that in all of his statements about the incident, he never once apologizes on behalf of the police, nor does he even express sadness, or remorse. To Follmer, Tamir is not a human being, not a twelve year old, not a little boy. He is “a male suspect.” Suspected of what? Playing in the park?
So there you have it. The local union boss doing everything in his power to keep a dangerous man on the force, and on the streets, so he can do his own perverted version of “to protect and serve.” Before we leave the tragic story of Tamir Rice, let us take a closer look at the corruption and incompetence and Clockwork Orange violence that is The Cleveland Police Department.
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Ironically, even as I write this (May 19th, 2015), a verdict is coming any hour now for an incident that happened three years ago. I refer to the famous high speed chase involving no less than one hundred of Cleveland’s finest in sixty patrol cars, all in hot pursuit, trailing a single car at reckless speeds through the streets of the city. A helicopter video of the insanity looks for all the world like the final few minutes of “The Blues Brothers”.
But this is not a comedy movie, this is real life, and the danger these cops put citizens in was simply unconscionable. Inexcusable and unforgivable. It ended in gunfire, with 137 shots being fired into the suspects’ car. The suspects, by the way, were unarmed. In case you think that the police might have been justified, no less than sixty-three officers were put on suspension for violating department rules and direct orders. One captain and one lieutenant were demoted, and a sergeant was fired over the incident. Nine sergeants were suspended.
And yes, this Blues Brothers climax had a star. The star was a one Officer Michael Brelo.
Michael Brelo was a part of the pursuit, but he was not content to merely fire from behind the safety of his cruiser, as officers are trained to do. His best plan was to run to the suspects’ stopped car, jump on top of it, and empty forty-nine bullets into the car, through the windshield, into the two passengers. (Actually, he only fired fifteen times into the car, through the windshield, while standing on the roof of the unarmed suspects’ car. The rest he shot while approaching. Keep in mind, he had to keep re-loading. There was some thought involved here.)
Again, as before, it is not just a bunch of angry protestors or loony liberals or CNN pundits who have determined that Brelo—like Tamir’s killer—acted like an idiot. Even the police experts do. W. Ken Katsaris, for example, has decades worth of experience, first as a decorated officer, then as a consultant with a PhD in the field: and he testified under oath at Brelo’s trial for voluntary manslaughter that Brelo was “completely foolish” to move from a position of cover to jumping on the suspects’ car, in order to continue firing directly down on them. “It’s not how you’re trained.” he said. “It’s not appropriate. It’s taking yourself out from behind cover, and you’re putting yourself in crossfire.” And later added, also while under oath: “It’s bizarre. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Brelo was found not guilty of all charges.
Let’s be honest: Brelo needs to not be a cop, ever again. Why? For the same reason that the cops who were responsible for the deaths of Tamir Rice and Michael Brown need to never be cops again: even if you didn’t care at all about the suspect, the truth is that these cops put themselves in such danger through their bad judgment that they shouldn’t be allowed to have a job that puts themselves in that position. It’s like having a macho death wish. And in the case of Brelo, only two options exist: either the two suspects in the car were not a threat, in which case this was an outrageous use of excessive force, or they were armed, and Brelo risked his life by choosing to climb on the car and stand there like someone with a Rambo complex. Idiot. Again, I say, he should not be a cop ever again.
Brelo told investigators that he didn’t remember standing on top of the car and shooting. Listen, I have all the sympathy in the world for people suffering from PTSD. But perhaps if a man whose job is to be a police officer cannot remember climbing on top of a car, he needs to get another job. Perhaps working security for the local Piggly Wiggly, or get a job as a school crossing guard.
What the hell goes on over at Cleveland Police Department? What kind of training are these guys getting?
Here is my favorite part of the story: a few days after Michael Brelo was acquitted of all charges—not one of the hundred cops got convicted of anything--he went out, got stinking drunk, got into a fight with his brother which was so violent that the police actually did see fit to swear out a warrant for Officer Brelo’s arrest and charge him with assault … but not before a drunken Belo staggered around the neighborhood at three in the morning wearing only one shoe, knocking on people’s doors, and generally scaring the hell out of them, and prompting a terrified female neighbor to call the police. That matter is as of yet unresolved. (It’s tragic. When a young black girl named Renisha McBride tried this, it got her shot dead. Brelo does it, and it creates a wave of hero-worshippers defending him all over the internet.)
UPDATE: It seems like nobody in Cleveland, who deals with the law, has any idea what the hell they are doing. The two twin Brelo brothers were arrested on May 27th, 2015 for drunk and disorderly … but the wheels of justice grind slow in such a complex matter of jurisprudence as this; their trial date was on July 30th. And guess what? Their lawyers asked for postponements, because they need more time to prepare the case. Precedents must be researched. Legal experts must be called upon to study the Amendments to the Constitution. They’ll take this all the way to the Supreme Court.
September 10th is the big day. And that, by the way, is just a pre-trial hearing.
Not only are the twin brothers boobs, their lawyers are boobs, and the judge is a boob for putting up with this crap. If the judge gave a rat’s ass about the way the taxpayers of Cleveland have their money spent, he would have gotten it all over right then and there. But no, a half a year will go by, and we won’t even be to the trial yet.
A postponement. Sheesh.
It is worth noting, before we leave this entire bizarre incident of the high speed chase, that four people were ultimately arrested as a result of the 60 cruiser pursuit that took the lives of two unarmed people, when their backfiring car was mistaken for gunshots. They were protestors, protesting the Michael Brelo verdict.
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And lest you think that Keystone Cops hijinks like the high speed chase is an isolated incident for the Cleveland PD—well, this and the shooting of Tamir Rice—you should also know about the tragic killing of Tanisha Anderson.
Tanisha Anderson was a mentally unstable woman who was, at the time of her death, under the care of her loving family. One day, when she was particularly agitated, her family called the authorities, to have her escorted to a mental health facility for evaluation. When Tanisha Anderson panicked about getting into a police car, one of the cops slammed her to the ground, hitting her head against the concrete. According to witnesses, she was begging him to stop and reciting the Lord’s Prayer, as he pressed his knee into her back. Finally she stopped struggling and passed out. Although her dress had come up over her waist, police would neither cover her back up, nor would they administer CPR, in spite of her brother begging them to do both. Her next stop was not the psychiatric hospital, but the county morgue. According to the medical examiner, “Tanisha Anderson died as a result of being physically restrained in a prone position.”
And these three cases—the shooting of an innocent boy playing with a toy gun, the murder of an equally innocent terrified mentally ill girl, and the 60 cruiser high speed chase that ended in the slaughter of two unarmed people—are hardly unique in the day-to-day operations of the Cleveland PD. The United States Department of Justice decided to investigate, and the results were appalling. The 58 page findings were published on December 4th, 2014, and its contents were damning indeed. Over six hundred incidents were examined. All of them together were enough to give the Cleveland Police Department a black eye, but some were particularly outstanding in their stupidity and cruelty. Among the victims:
--The thirteen year old shoplifter who, while handcuffed and sitting in the back of a police cruiser, was punched in the face until he was beaten and bloody.
--The man they repeatedly Tasered. . .while he was strapped into a gurney in the back of an ambulance.
--Brian, a man who was stopped by the police for walking while carrying a can of beer. When officers asked him to stop, he went and sat on a nearby porch. As he was sitting, one officer saw a gun in Brian’s waistband, and shouted “GUN” to which Brian, raising his hands above his head in surrender fashion, responded that he had a concealed handgun license. One officer went to cuff him, asking him to lower his arms and put his hands behind his back. When Brian lowered his arms, the officer claimed that Brian was reaching for his weapon, and so shot him.
--Nathan, who was shot by a policeman who could not even offer investigators a reason for why he pulled his gun in the first place. Nathan was leaving a club at 2:30 in the morning at the same time that a nearby concert let out, causing a traffic snarl. Nathan tried to make a right onto a street that had apparently been closed by police, but which Nathan had seen many drivers traversing in the preceding few minutes. An officer approached his car, reached in the driver’s side with his weapon drawn, and shot Nathan.
--Gwendolyn, a girl handcuffed to a chair as one officer groped her chest and choked her, while another officer stood on and watched, doing nothing to stop it. Bizarrely enough, upon viewing the security camera footage of the incident, the Cleveland Supervisor deemed it a necessary use of force.
--The man who was being held hostage in a home invasion-abduction. Cleveland PD surrounded the house. And when a man ran from the house wearing only his boxer shorts, waving his arms about and yelling, the cops shot him—because they presumed he was the kidnapper. In the kind of intrepid analysis that one simply cannot expect from policing on a state or local level, the Feds sagely advised: “The man fleeing the home was wearing only boxer shorts, making it extremely unlikely that he was one of the hostage takers.”
Other memorable anecdotes from the Department of Justice investigation into the Cleveland Police Department include Tasing suspects who are already handcuffed on the ground, kicking and beating suspects who are already handcuffed, using pepper spray on a handcuffed, mentally ill man, Tasing a man who was both deaf and suicidal as he cowered in his own bathroom, and shooting 24 rounds at a suspect walking through a neighborhood, instead of following alternate, prescribed protocols. In doing so, the police endangered an entire community and are lucky they didn’t kill an innocent citizen: they managed to hit fourteen vehicles and six houses in the process. And I have no doubt that after each of these incidents, there was no reflection or uttering of mea culpas on the part of the Cleveland Police. Just Officers Winky, Spunky, Cuddles, and Tiny all heading out for donuts, or maybe a beer and a bump.
--Cleveland PD, fix yourself.
But it is doubtful if they ever really will. And in spite of all of these incidents and excesses, the Cleveland Police Union stands firmly behind their actions. All of their actions. When Cleveland Browns receiver Andrew Hawkins played during the month of December wearing a shirt that said “Justice for Tamir Rice & John Crawford”, it created a bit of a stir.
What did Cleveland Police Patrolman Union President Jeff Follmer have to say about it? “It’s pretty pathetic when athletes think they know the law. They should stick to what they know best on the field. The Cleveland Police protect and serve the Browns stadium and the Browns organization owes us an apology.” And when asked by a reporter what he thought about the growing fear in the country about police brutality and abuse of power, Follmer replied: “How ‘bout this? Listen to police officers’ commands. Listen to what we tell you, and just stop. That eliminates a lot of problems … The nation needs to realize, when we tell you to do something, do it, and if you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and if you’re right, the courts will figure it out.” Except Jeff, only problem is, in the case of Tamir and John Crawford and dozens of others, they’re dead, so they won’t have their day in court. Andrew Hawkins’ response to Jeff Follmer is one of the most eloquent statements ever to come from an athlete, a Black Lives Matter advocate, or for that matter, any person concerned with the First Amendment, and it is transcribed in full at the end of this chapter.
I suppose there is so very much more that I could say. I could tell you more about Tamir Rice—that he was still very much a little boy, who loved Legos and comics, who played in the school band and who loved driving his teachers crazy by bursting into song and getting the rest of the class to join in. Hundreds of pages have been written about the all too short life and tragic death of Tamir Rice. But if history just accepts that grim truth of the above compendium of evidence, then future generations will know the truth : innocent blacks are still used for target practice in this country.
ANDREW HAWKINS, Cleveland Browns Receiver
In response to local police union president Jeff Follmer
Who demanded an apology from the Browns when Haskins wore a
Justice for Tamir Rice & John Crawford Shirt on the football field
“I was taught that justice is a right that every American should have. Also justice should be the goal of every American. I think that’s what makes this country. To me, justice means the innocent should be found innocent. It means that those who do wrong should get their due punishment. Ultimately, it means fair treatment. So a call for justice shouldn’t offend or disrespect anybody. A call for justice shouldn’t warrant an apology.
“To clarify, I utterly respect and appreciate every police officer that protects and serves all of us with honesty, integrity and the right way. And I don’t think those kind of officers should be offended by what I did. My mom taught me my entire life to respect law enforcement. I have family, close friends that are incredible police officers and I tell them all the time how they are much braver than me for it. So my wearing a T-shirt wasn’t a stance against every police officer or every police department. My wearing the T-shirt was a stance against wrong individuals doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons to innocent people.
“Unfortunately, my mom also taught me just as there are good police officers, there are some not-so-good police officers that would assume the worst of me without knowing anything about me for reasons I can’t control. She taught me to be careful and be on the lookout for those not-so-good police officers because they could potentially do me harm and most times without consequences. Those are the police officers that should be offended.
“Being a police officer takes bravery. And I understand that they’re put in difficult positions and have to make those snap decisions. As a football player, I know a little bit about snap decisions, obviously on an extremely lesser and non-comparative scale, because when a police officer makes a snap decision, it’s literally a matter of life and death. That’s hard a situation to be in. But if the wrong decision is made, based on pre-conceived notions or the wrong motives, I believe there should be consequence. Because without consequence, naturally the magnitude of the snap decisions is lessened, whether consciously or unconsciously.
“I’m not an activist, in any way, shape or form. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I keep my opinions to myself on most matters. I worked extremely hard to build and keep my reputation especially here in Ohio, and by most accounts I’ve done a solid job of decently building a good name. Before I made the decision to wear the T-shirt, I understood I was putting that reputation in jeopardy to some of those people who wouldn’t necessarily agree with my perspective. I understood there was going to be backlash, and that scared me, honestly. But deep down I felt like it was the right thing to do. If I was to run away from what I felt in my soul was the right thing to do, that would make me a coward, and I can’t live with that. God wouldn’t be able to put me where I am today, as far as I’ve come in life, if I was a coward.
“As you well know, and it’s well documented, I have a 2-year-old little boy. The same 2-year-old little boy that everyone said was cute when I jokingly threw him out of the house earlier this year. That little boy is my entire world. And the No. 1 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. And my heart was broken for the parents of Tamir and John Crawford knowing they had to live that nightmare of a reality.
“So, like I said, I made the conscious decision to wear the T-shirt. I felt like my heart was in the right place. I’m at peace with it and those that disagree with me, this is America, everyone has the right to their first amendment rights. Those who support me, I appreciate your support. But at the same time, support the causes and the people and the injustices that you feel strongly about. Stand up for them. Speak up for them. No matter what it is because that’s what America’s about and that’s what this country was founded on.”
END ANDREW HAWKINS STATEMENT.
This chapter, “THE TOO SHORT LIFE OF TAMIR”, is excerpted from “THE LITTLE BOOK OF LYNCHING”, by Meg Langford. The new, second edition will be available on Amazon in the fall of 2016.
In memory of Tamir Rice, his story is being told in a groundbreaking new book that collects lynching stories, starting in the late 1800’s and continuing up through the horrific events of 2014-2015. While understandably incomplete—for it is simply impossible to find out the true stories of the thousands that have been lynched during the history of the United States—there is no other book that creates as complete a compendium of the racial violence and brutality which constitute the tragic and often hidden dark side of the American experience.
THE TOO SHORT LIFE OF TAMIR
He was twelve. He was just twelve years old. He was a little boy, doing what all kids his age do: he was at the park where he loved to play, fooling around with a toy gun, sometimes acting like a bigshot … then almost immediately bored again, sticking it in his pants and plopping down on a park bench, trying to think of what interesting thing he might do next.
Within seconds, he would be dead.
His name was Tamir Rice. And here is the bitter irony of hindsight: this child playing imaginary cops and robbers seemed to be evenly matched, because the enemy behaved about like a twelve year old would act in such a situation, except for that the Cleveland Police Department had made the mistake of issuing this manchild a deadly weapon.
I have said previously, and will say again now, that nothing in this book is meant to be an indictment against police officers writ large. Hundreds of thousands of police officers, from sea to shining sea, take their duties seriously, perform them excellently, do everything they can to foster good relations within the community--and most importantly, put their lives on the line for our safety, on a daily basis.
That said, as is the case so often in this book, these cops screwed it up completely. In fact, the Cleveland Police Department screwed it up on every possible level, from dispatcher to middle management right up to the police union. Let’s list the errors in judgment on the part of the Cleveland PD that cost poor Tamir Rice his life. I will even go so far as to say--because I believe the evidence bears it out—that more than just poor judgment was at play in this tragedy. At the heart of this homicide was a trigger happy cop whose best plan was to shoot first, and ask questions later.
- Let’s start with the fact that the officer who killed Tamir was unfit for duty, and had no business wearing a uniform, much less carrying a lethal weapon. This is not my opinion, arbitrarily or alone. It is not even the opinion of the Rice family lawyer, or an angry mob, or MSNBC. It is the professional opinion of the police themselves. Less than two years before Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann shot and killed a twelve year old boy, he was trying to become an officer for the Independence, Ohio Police Department. The mentor officer assigned to him described Loehmann as “distracted and weepy” and “emotionally immature.” More appalling still, “his handgun performance was dismal.” Offered in the link below is more verbatim information from an actual internal memo, all 62 pages, regarding the circumstances under which Loehmann shamefully left the Independence, Ohio Police Department. The 62 page document discussing Loehmann’s dangerous incompetence is actually frightening.
The memo shows the officer who shot Tamir—the man who murdered the boy—to be weepy, an emotional wreck, and incompetent with equipment, particularly the deadly kind. On a trip to a store to get some of the young recruit’s equipment which had just come in, Loehmann began sobbing so badly he could not go into the store. When his mentor officer took him for a bite to eat, the hysterical recruit made some very bizarre comments: “Maybe I should quit.” “I have no friends.” “I’ve cried every day for four months.” And my personal favorite: “I only hang out with 73 year old priests.”
And what the hell is with the psych eval that Loehmann had to take, in order to get hired by the Cleveland PD? I’m thinking it was the rigorous intellectual equivalent of those old art school ads that asked “Can You Draw Winky?”—you remember the ones that used to appear on cereal boxes with funny names like Wheatina and Maypo and Twinkles and Pep and Corn-fetti? For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, these lures to send money in for a correspondence course in drawing featured cloyingly sweet animals with double entendre names like Cuddles and Winky and Tiny and Spunky; if you drew them, you had a chance to enroll in the school. I’m thinkin’ that’s the kind of scam psych eval Timmy Loehmann passed.
A Sergeant Greg Tinnirello, who worked with Timothy Loehmann when he was trying to become an officer for the Independence, Ohio Police Department, became so worried about the crying recruit that he even asked Loehmann if “he was thinking about hurting himself”. Tinnirello went so far as to contact Loehmann’s mother, who was not surprised about what she heard. Tinnirello wrote in his report, “She informed me that as Ptl. Loehmann was going through the Cleveland Heights Police Academy, his study papers would be soaked in tears nightly for three months, because of problems with his girlfriend.” And elsewhere in the report, Tinnirello wrote: “As we talked about being emotionally ready for duty and the events of the morning, Ptl. Loehmann became agitated. He stated to me, as if he was thinking out loud, ‘WHAT I WANT IS FOR YOU TO SHUT UP.’ Ptl Loehmann wasn’t even looking at me when he made the statement and seemed to be distracted, as if the statement came out under stress.”
This is the man that Cleveland Police would later decide was capable of carrying a lethal weapon, of making life and death decisions in a heartbeat.
And last but not least, Tamir Rice’s killer was also an opportunistic liar, who bent the rules and manipulated his own stories and versions to fit what his superiors wanted to hear. Loehmann could possibly have gotten over the “distracted and weepy” part—apparently he was getting over a romantic crisis, and not very well—and he possibly could have improved his marksmanship. But the lying and manipulating? Read the excerpted memo at the link above, and you will find yourself doubting every single thing that Officer Loehmann said in relation to the shooting of Tamir Rice.
Here is an extended excerpt from that report:
EMOTIONAL IMMATURITY
“Ptl. Loehmann’s inability to perform basic functions as instructed, and his inability to function because of a personal situation at home with an on again off again girlfriend leads one to believe that he would not be able to substantially cope, or make good decisions … This ongoing personal relationship should not have personally consumed him that he would not be able to follow simple direction, especially after being given a reasonable amount of time to collect himself.
CIRCUMVENTING DIRECTION:
It appears from the pattern developing within our short time frame with Ptl. Loehmann that he often feels that, when told to do something, that those instructions are optional, and that he can manipulate them if he so feels it better serves him … he just appears to have the mindset that if he thinks he knows better, then that is the course he follows.
RECOMMENDATION
Due to his dangerous loss of composure during live range training and his inability to handle personal stress, I do not believe Ptl. Loehmann shows the personal maturity needed to work in our employment. Unfortunately, in law enforcement, there are times when instructions need to be followed to the letter, and I am under the impression, that Ptl. Loehmann, under certain circumstances, will not react in the way instructed. … For these reasons, I am recommending that he be released from the employment of the city of Independence. I do not believe that time, nor training, will be able to correct these deficiencies.
It is surreal that this man got a badge and a gun from another police department after his shameful departure from the Independence Police Department. The Cleveland Police Department should have done a decent background check before they hired him. Had the least bit of caution, responsibility, protocol, or common sense been exercised during the hiring process, there is no doubt in my mind that Tamir would be alive today. It is a simple but tragic truth: Tamir Rice’s blood is on their collective hands.
But give him a job they did. And a badge, and a gun. But only after Timothy Loehmann had applied and been turned down by Akron PD, Euclid PD, Parma Heights PD, and the New York Police Department. Also, Loehmann took a stab at becoming the sheriff of Cuyahoga County. He took a test and scored 46 out of 100. 70 points is failing.
But all of this didn’t stop Cleveland from hiring him. After Tamir was dead, they admitted that they hadn’t looked at his personnel files. Why? Because, according to police Sgt. Pillow, they “previously had no policies about reviewing personnel files.” They say they are going to change that, though. In light of everything.
Oh, in case you are wondering about Loehmann’s partner: Loehmann's partner, Frank Garmback, had been sued in federal court for use of excessive force. According to the lawsuit brought against him and the Cleveland Police Department, on August 7th, 2010, Tamela Eaton returned to her home after work and then called the police about towing a car that was parked in front of her driveway. She did not know that two officers were already in the area, searching for possible robbery suspects in an unrelated incident. When Tamela saw the police preparing to arrest a male passerby, Tamela mistakenly thought that the police were going to arrest the man for parking in front of her house. When she tried to explain to the police that she did not want him arrested (not realizing the confusion), the argument escalated and, in the words of the lawsuit, “Garmback rushed Eaton and placed her in a chokehold, tackled her to the ground, twisted her wrist and began hitting her body.” His partner, Officer Guerra, rushed over and proceeded to punch Tamela Eaton in the face multiple times. There is no video of the incident, but the city clearly felt that the accusation had enough merit to shell out $100,000 in settlement.
But back to the death of Tamir Rice,
2.) THE DISPATCHER botched it. Training, training, training. These dispatchers are the first line of communication in a police crisis, and the importance of what they do is not to be underrated. Just because they don’t carry a weapon does not change the fact that civilian lives lie in their hands. And there is no clearer example of this than the 911call made by a concerned citizen about the boy he saw in the park: yes, there was someone in the park with a gun, but the caller went out of his way to repeatedly emphasize that the gun might very well be a toy and that Tamir might have been just a kid. It is worth noting that the 911 caller was NOT hysterical, and the 911 caller even stopped at the beginning of the call to exchange pleasantries:“Hey, how are you?” was how he started out his call to the operator. Clearly, this did not have the almost crazed tone of some of the people who call 911. “Hey, how are you?” Not exactly the tone of a person in crisis. Nor was the caller trying to hide from Tamir, or run from the park. He sat on a park bench, watching the boy. And the caller also made sure to note that he thought, from his observations, that the person in the park he was calling about could have been a juvenile, and the gun a toy. Had these two simple but crucial pieces of information been passed along to the police officers, Tamir might be alive today.
Here is an excerpt from an article in the Daily Kos, expansively entitled “Whoever failed to pass on that Tamir Rice’s gun was fake is the Second Worst Person In The World” by Christian Dern:
“Last week, Cleveland officials revealed that the 911 operator who took the original call was Constance Hollinger, and the dispatcher who sent police to the scene was Beth Mandl. It's not immediately clear who failed to pass the information on. WEWS-TV quotes city officials as seemingly putting the blame on Hollinger. However, WOIO says that Hollinger transferred the call to Mandl via a computer screen--raising the possibility that Mandl may have simply failed to pass all of that information on to police.
Here’s what we do know about Beth Mandl, police dispatcher, though: she has an arrest record herself. She was arrested in September 2008 for carrying a concealed weapon. She took it into a bar with her, where she had some cocktails. Nothing ever came of the arrest, though. Except for the police did hire her to work as a dispatcher shortly thereafter. Maybe this was her innovative form of networking.
UPDATE: During the time that “The Little Book of Lynching, 2nd edition” is in its final editing stages, a 224 page report has been issued which claims that the information about Tamir’s age and the possibility of the gun being a fake gun was never relayed from Hollinger to Mandl. Hollinger lawyered up, thanks to help from her union, and she remains mute on why she did not send on these crucial details which may have saved Tamir’s life. But I left the above prose intact, because I think the world needs to know that Beth Mandl is no prize either—at least, not a person whom we should have working in law enforcement, since laws apparently don’t mean much to her, or apply to her.
Further investigation has provided us with more information about Ms. Hollinger, who didn’t think it was at all important or worth mentioning to the police that the 911 caller had repeatedly mentioned that the gun might be fake, and that the person carrying it might have been a juvenile. Apparently, a supervisor noted in her personnel filed that “Hollinger tends to be abrupt, and disconnect the caller when they are providing additional info.” And yes, I understand that perhaps Hollinger is anxious to get what is inherently urgent news to the next person in the chain. But modern technology makes it simply a matter of pushing a button to relay preliminary information to the dispatcher, while keeping the 911 caller on the line, so as to glean more information that might help save lives on the scene, and give the officers a better idea of what they are walking into. And the experts agree: Seth Stoughton is a former police officer who now teaching at the University of South Carolina School of Law. His criticism of Hollinger is clear: “A witness’s description of a weapon as ‘probably fake’ combined with a description of the suspect as a juvenile , is very different than a description of an adult holding a firearm that the witness is sure is real. Officers may take a very different approach.”
Hmm. A person taking 911 calls is not interested in getting all the info that the witness/victim/911 caller has to offer? Let me put it crassly: her ass should be fired. And here is one last important detail, in case you don’t already have profound doubts about the hiring and firing policies of the Cleveland Police Department: Hollinger had worked previously as a police dispatcher, and she had been fired from that job. She had already proved herself incapable and untrustworthy at the job of police dispatch, yet the same people who hired a dishonest and emotionally immature officer also hired an incompetent and law-breaking 911 operator.
I say shame on you, Ms. Hollinger. Some of Tamir’s blood is on your hands.
3.) POLICE PROCEDURE NIGHTMARE: Forget public opinion. I get it, they are rioting in the streets. A lot of pre-judgmental people don’t care what the public thinks or has to say. So let’s consult the experts. Well, experts from all over the country have seen the video of the shooting and they agree: proper police procedure was repeatedly ignored. One has to wonder if the two officers would have ignored protocol so completely, had they known that a community center security camera would be capturing their actions for the entire world to see. It is worth nothing that at the time of the Tamir Rice shooting, none of the Cleveland PD officers or cruisers were equipped with dash cams.
Specifically, surveillance footage shows a cruiser driven by sixth-year Officer Frank Garmback cut across the grass in front of a gazebo at the West Side Cleveland Park and roll within a few feet of Tamir; two seconds later, first-year officer Timothy Loehmann is shooting Tamir from his open passenger door.
This, incidentally, is the same garbage that transpired in Ferguson. Even the Ferguson officer in question admits as much. Rather than interacting with the individuals at a safe distance, in both the Michael Brown shooting and the Tamir Rice shooting, the officers sped right up to the suspect and engaged. Even from a purely self-preservationist point of view on the part of the officer, this makes no sense. You are driving right up to a guy holding a gun? That action puts the officer in clear and present danger; the cop is practically asking to be shot. This reckless behavior could not be more opposite the procedure and protocol in which officers are trained. But let’s hear from several experts:
David Klinger, 30 year veteran of the LAPD, as well as professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, had this to say about the Tamir Rice shooting: “The issue is that the vehicle, the police vehicle, never should have been there. And we have a problem in American policing, and that is that in many places, officers get too close to people too fast. And if you read the transcript of the Darren Wilson testimony, and then you piece everything together with other testimony, that’s where I think the situation went sideways … Darren Wilson got too close too soon. And we could have a long discussion about this, but what it boils down to is this was a tactical failure on the driver officer. I do not understand why he put the other officer and himself so close. . .The problem is that vehicle never should have been so close and therefore, the officer never should have been so close. They should have found a position of cover at some distance, got out, addressed with verbal commands … This is a tragedy for everyone …
David Thomas, 20 year veteran police officer, PhD in Forensic Psychology, and Senior Research Fellow for The Police Foundation, watched the footage of the killing, and was unequivocal: "The tactics were very poor. If the driver would have stopped a distance away, so that the primary officer wasn't right there to get involved in shooting, it may have played out differently. The Cleveland officers should have been trained to take cover when dealing with someone who might be armed, and to tell the individual to drop the weapon.”
Hubert Williams, 30-year veteran police officer and former president of the Police Foundation, was appalled: “Garmback should not have pulled the police car so close to where Tamir was standing if they believed he was armed -- as they were told by a 9-1-1 dispatcher. By doing so, Garmback put Loehmann in a more vulnerable position to be shot by Tamir, in turn making it more likely that he would fire his own gun in self-defense. If a guy has a real gun, you're definitely pulling into the line of fire. .. approaching Tamir from a distance would have not only put the officers at an advantage for firing at Tamir if he was a threat to them, but also would have given them an opportunity to communicate with the boy. It occurred too soon, and that's going to be the biggest problem that the city of Cleveland is going to be faced with."
The evidence is clear, and the opinions are in accord: in spite of Cleveland Police Union President Jeff Follmer's lame defense of Tamir’s killers, nonetheless, the best and brightest in the field of policing agree that both officers’ behavior was unacceptable, unprofessional, and resulted in the death of a child.
4.) SHOOT FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER: The Tamir Rice killing is eerily reminiscent of the John Crawford killing, and these two killings are sadly similar to countless shootings that happen in this country every year. The cops claim that they tell the suspect to put down their weapon, the suspect does not comply, and so they are left with no choice but to shoot. But the ugly fact is this: they did not give Tamir any time at all to comply. The video of the killing does not lie: 1/1/2 to 2 seconds pass from the arrival of the police car to the shooting of the boy. Just as in the case of the John Crawford Walmart shooting, the command for Tamir to show his hands or, in the case of the Walmart shooting “drop you weapon”, was almost concomitant with the shooting. It was practically synchronized.
Science has long known that the human brain cannot process more than about six syllables per second—and that is if the listener is attuned to the message. So if Officer Loehmann said “Drop your Weapon” three times, it would have taken Tamir about two or three seconds to even understand:
a.) That the shouting was directed at him and
b.) What he, Tamir, was supposed to do.
In fact, even the first command, “Drop your weapon” would have taken Tamir about a full second to comprehend, and to understand that it was meant for him to hear. This crucial one second does not then take into account the reaction time it would take for him to comply. In fact, since Tamir didn’t think he was doing anything wrong—playing with a toy gun—it might have slowed his understanding of what was being asked, and of whom it was being asked. Tamir might have thought, for a crucial split-second, that they were talking to someone else. You don’t have to have a fancy-ass PhD level education in Communication (which I do have, by the way), to understand what is so very painfully obvious just from watching the video: The cops open fire at almost the same moment that they opened their mouths.
5. Once Tamir was on the ground dying, they made no attempt to administer first aid. Four minutes would pass before anybody arrived to try and save the boy’s life. What else is there to say about that?
6. When Tamir’s sister went running to him, because she saw her brother had been shot, she was slammed to the ground and handcuffed. Later, his mother was put in the back of a cruiser.
Sadly, for the Cleveland Police Department, this is just another day. Business as usual. We spoke earlier in the chapter of the folly, the screw-up, the egregious and tragic nightmare which was the decision to hire Loehmann in the first place. He is a childish, immature, and emotionally retarded man. And he is a liar. And yet, somebody made the decision to hire him, after a nearby police department had the good sense to fire him.
And not surprisingly, the local Cleveland Police Union rushed in to vigorously defend the cop who killed a child. Rather than doing his sworn duty to make policing safer by getting the dangerous cops out, head of the local union Jeff Folmer decided that lying was the best approach, when speaking publicly about the Tamir Rice killing.
FOLLMER: The officers were begging and pleading for this young man keep his hands up.
REPORTER: So it wasn’t just a one time “Put your hands up!”? It was an extended thing?
FOLLMER: No, they knew where that gun was located …they’re telling him to keep his hands up. . they did not want his hand to go down to his waistband. They wanted—one of the partners probably would have gone up and taken the gun out of his waistband. That’s how we do things. There was a lot of begging and pleading to keep his hands up. (emphasis added)
Follmer had seen the Tamir Rice killing video at this point. So we know that on top of him being insensitive, and a meathead, he is a liar. Who thinks we are stupid, and can’t watch the video for ourselves, and see that Follmer is apparently constitutionally incapable of telling the truth. On a last note, it is interesting that in all of his statements about the incident, he never once apologizes on behalf of the police, nor does he even express sadness, or remorse. To Follmer, Tamir is not a human being, not a twelve year old, not a little boy. He is “a male suspect.” Suspected of what? Playing in the park?
So there you have it. The local union boss doing everything in his power to keep a dangerous man on the force, and on the streets, so he can do his own perverted version of “to protect and serve.” Before we leave the tragic story of Tamir Rice, let us take a closer look at the corruption and incompetence and Clockwork Orange violence that is The Cleveland Police Department.
********
Ironically, even as I write this (May 19th, 2015), a verdict is coming any hour now for an incident that happened three years ago. I refer to the famous high speed chase involving no less than one hundred of Cleveland’s finest in sixty patrol cars, all in hot pursuit, trailing a single car at reckless speeds through the streets of the city. A helicopter video of the insanity looks for all the world like the final few minutes of “The Blues Brothers”.
But this is not a comedy movie, this is real life, and the danger these cops put citizens in was simply unconscionable. Inexcusable and unforgivable. It ended in gunfire, with 137 shots being fired into the suspects’ car. The suspects, by the way, were unarmed. In case you think that the police might have been justified, no less than sixty-three officers were put on suspension for violating department rules and direct orders. One captain and one lieutenant were demoted, and a sergeant was fired over the incident. Nine sergeants were suspended.
And yes, this Blues Brothers climax had a star. The star was a one Officer Michael Brelo.
Michael Brelo was a part of the pursuit, but he was not content to merely fire from behind the safety of his cruiser, as officers are trained to do. His best plan was to run to the suspects’ stopped car, jump on top of it, and empty forty-nine bullets into the car, through the windshield, into the two passengers. (Actually, he only fired fifteen times into the car, through the windshield, while standing on the roof of the unarmed suspects’ car. The rest he shot while approaching. Keep in mind, he had to keep re-loading. There was some thought involved here.)
Again, as before, it is not just a bunch of angry protestors or loony liberals or CNN pundits who have determined that Brelo—like Tamir’s killer—acted like an idiot. Even the police experts do. W. Ken Katsaris, for example, has decades worth of experience, first as a decorated officer, then as a consultant with a PhD in the field: and he testified under oath at Brelo’s trial for voluntary manslaughter that Brelo was “completely foolish” to move from a position of cover to jumping on the suspects’ car, in order to continue firing directly down on them. “It’s not how you’re trained.” he said. “It’s not appropriate. It’s taking yourself out from behind cover, and you’re putting yourself in crossfire.” And later added, also while under oath: “It’s bizarre. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Brelo was found not guilty of all charges.
Let’s be honest: Brelo needs to not be a cop, ever again. Why? For the same reason that the cops who were responsible for the deaths of Tamir Rice and Michael Brown need to never be cops again: even if you didn’t care at all about the suspect, the truth is that these cops put themselves in such danger through their bad judgment that they shouldn’t be allowed to have a job that puts themselves in that position. It’s like having a macho death wish. And in the case of Brelo, only two options exist: either the two suspects in the car were not a threat, in which case this was an outrageous use of excessive force, or they were armed, and Brelo risked his life by choosing to climb on the car and stand there like someone with a Rambo complex. Idiot. Again, I say, he should not be a cop ever again.
Brelo told investigators that he didn’t remember standing on top of the car and shooting. Listen, I have all the sympathy in the world for people suffering from PTSD. But perhaps if a man whose job is to be a police officer cannot remember climbing on top of a car, he needs to get another job. Perhaps working security for the local Piggly Wiggly, or get a job as a school crossing guard.
What the hell goes on over at Cleveland Police Department? What kind of training are these guys getting?
Here is my favorite part of the story: a few days after Michael Brelo was acquitted of all charges—not one of the hundred cops got convicted of anything--he went out, got stinking drunk, got into a fight with his brother which was so violent that the police actually did see fit to swear out a warrant for Officer Brelo’s arrest and charge him with assault … but not before a drunken Belo staggered around the neighborhood at three in the morning wearing only one shoe, knocking on people’s doors, and generally scaring the hell out of them, and prompting a terrified female neighbor to call the police. That matter is as of yet unresolved. (It’s tragic. When a young black girl named Renisha McBride tried this, it got her shot dead. Brelo does it, and it creates a wave of hero-worshippers defending him all over the internet.)
UPDATE: It seems like nobody in Cleveland, who deals with the law, has any idea what the hell they are doing. The two twin Brelo brothers were arrested on May 27th, 2015 for drunk and disorderly … but the wheels of justice grind slow in such a complex matter of jurisprudence as this; their trial date was on July 30th. And guess what? Their lawyers asked for postponements, because they need more time to prepare the case. Precedents must be researched. Legal experts must be called upon to study the Amendments to the Constitution. They’ll take this all the way to the Supreme Court.
September 10th is the big day. And that, by the way, is just a pre-trial hearing.
Not only are the twin brothers boobs, their lawyers are boobs, and the judge is a boob for putting up with this crap. If the judge gave a rat’s ass about the way the taxpayers of Cleveland have their money spent, he would have gotten it all over right then and there. But no, a half a year will go by, and we won’t even be to the trial yet.
A postponement. Sheesh.
It is worth noting, before we leave this entire bizarre incident of the high speed chase, that four people were ultimately arrested as a result of the 60 cruiser pursuit that took the lives of two unarmed people, when their backfiring car was mistaken for gunshots. They were protestors, protesting the Michael Brelo verdict.
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And lest you think that Keystone Cops hijinks like the high speed chase is an isolated incident for the Cleveland PD—well, this and the shooting of Tamir Rice—you should also know about the tragic killing of Tanisha Anderson.
Tanisha Anderson was a mentally unstable woman who was, at the time of her death, under the care of her loving family. One day, when she was particularly agitated, her family called the authorities, to have her escorted to a mental health facility for evaluation. When Tanisha Anderson panicked about getting into a police car, one of the cops slammed her to the ground, hitting her head against the concrete. According to witnesses, she was begging him to stop and reciting the Lord’s Prayer, as he pressed his knee into her back. Finally she stopped struggling and passed out. Although her dress had come up over her waist, police would neither cover her back up, nor would they administer CPR, in spite of her brother begging them to do both. Her next stop was not the psychiatric hospital, but the county morgue. According to the medical examiner, “Tanisha Anderson died as a result of being physically restrained in a prone position.”
And these three cases—the shooting of an innocent boy playing with a toy gun, the murder of an equally innocent terrified mentally ill girl, and the 60 cruiser high speed chase that ended in the slaughter of two unarmed people—are hardly unique in the day-to-day operations of the Cleveland PD. The United States Department of Justice decided to investigate, and the results were appalling. The 58 page findings were published on December 4th, 2014, and its contents were damning indeed. Over six hundred incidents were examined. All of them together were enough to give the Cleveland Police Department a black eye, but some were particularly outstanding in their stupidity and cruelty. Among the victims:
--The thirteen year old shoplifter who, while handcuffed and sitting in the back of a police cruiser, was punched in the face until he was beaten and bloody.
--The man they repeatedly Tasered. . .while he was strapped into a gurney in the back of an ambulance.
--Brian, a man who was stopped by the police for walking while carrying a can of beer. When officers asked him to stop, he went and sat on a nearby porch. As he was sitting, one officer saw a gun in Brian’s waistband, and shouted “GUN” to which Brian, raising his hands above his head in surrender fashion, responded that he had a concealed handgun license. One officer went to cuff him, asking him to lower his arms and put his hands behind his back. When Brian lowered his arms, the officer claimed that Brian was reaching for his weapon, and so shot him.
--Nathan, who was shot by a policeman who could not even offer investigators a reason for why he pulled his gun in the first place. Nathan was leaving a club at 2:30 in the morning at the same time that a nearby concert let out, causing a traffic snarl. Nathan tried to make a right onto a street that had apparently been closed by police, but which Nathan had seen many drivers traversing in the preceding few minutes. An officer approached his car, reached in the driver’s side with his weapon drawn, and shot Nathan.
--Gwendolyn, a girl handcuffed to a chair as one officer groped her chest and choked her, while another officer stood on and watched, doing nothing to stop it. Bizarrely enough, upon viewing the security camera footage of the incident, the Cleveland Supervisor deemed it a necessary use of force.
--The man who was being held hostage in a home invasion-abduction. Cleveland PD surrounded the house. And when a man ran from the house wearing only his boxer shorts, waving his arms about and yelling, the cops shot him—because they presumed he was the kidnapper. In the kind of intrepid analysis that one simply cannot expect from policing on a state or local level, the Feds sagely advised: “The man fleeing the home was wearing only boxer shorts, making it extremely unlikely that he was one of the hostage takers.”
Other memorable anecdotes from the Department of Justice investigation into the Cleveland Police Department include Tasing suspects who are already handcuffed on the ground, kicking and beating suspects who are already handcuffed, using pepper spray on a handcuffed, mentally ill man, Tasing a man who was both deaf and suicidal as he cowered in his own bathroom, and shooting 24 rounds at a suspect walking through a neighborhood, instead of following alternate, prescribed protocols. In doing so, the police endangered an entire community and are lucky they didn’t kill an innocent citizen: they managed to hit fourteen vehicles and six houses in the process. And I have no doubt that after each of these incidents, there was no reflection or uttering of mea culpas on the part of the Cleveland Police. Just Officers Winky, Spunky, Cuddles, and Tiny all heading out for donuts, or maybe a beer and a bump.
--Cleveland PD, fix yourself.
But it is doubtful if they ever really will. And in spite of all of these incidents and excesses, the Cleveland Police Union stands firmly behind their actions. All of their actions. When Cleveland Browns receiver Andrew Hawkins played during the month of December wearing a shirt that said “Justice for Tamir Rice & John Crawford”, it created a bit of a stir.
What did Cleveland Police Patrolman Union President Jeff Follmer have to say about it? “It’s pretty pathetic when athletes think they know the law. They should stick to what they know best on the field. The Cleveland Police protect and serve the Browns stadium and the Browns organization owes us an apology.” And when asked by a reporter what he thought about the growing fear in the country about police brutality and abuse of power, Follmer replied: “How ‘bout this? Listen to police officers’ commands. Listen to what we tell you, and just stop. That eliminates a lot of problems … The nation needs to realize, when we tell you to do something, do it, and if you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and if you’re right, the courts will figure it out.” Except Jeff, only problem is, in the case of Tamir and John Crawford and dozens of others, they’re dead, so they won’t have their day in court. Andrew Hawkins’ response to Jeff Follmer is one of the most eloquent statements ever to come from an athlete, a Black Lives Matter advocate, or for that matter, any person concerned with the First Amendment, and it is transcribed in full at the end of this chapter.
I suppose there is so very much more that I could say. I could tell you more about Tamir Rice—that he was still very much a little boy, who loved Legos and comics, who played in the school band and who loved driving his teachers crazy by bursting into song and getting the rest of the class to join in. Hundreds of pages have been written about the all too short life and tragic death of Tamir Rice. But if history just accepts that grim truth of the above compendium of evidence, then future generations will know the truth : innocent blacks are still used for target practice in this country.
ANDREW HAWKINS, Cleveland Browns Receiver
In response to local police union president Jeff Follmer
Who demanded an apology from the Browns when Haskins wore a
Justice for Tamir Rice & John Crawford Shirt on the football field
“I was taught that justice is a right that every American should have. Also justice should be the goal of every American. I think that’s what makes this country. To me, justice means the innocent should be found innocent. It means that those who do wrong should get their due punishment. Ultimately, it means fair treatment. So a call for justice shouldn’t offend or disrespect anybody. A call for justice shouldn’t warrant an apology.
“To clarify, I utterly respect and appreciate every police officer that protects and serves all of us with honesty, integrity and the right way. And I don’t think those kind of officers should be offended by what I did. My mom taught me my entire life to respect law enforcement. I have family, close friends that are incredible police officers and I tell them all the time how they are much braver than me for it. So my wearing a T-shirt wasn’t a stance against every police officer or every police department. My wearing the T-shirt was a stance against wrong individuals doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons to innocent people.
“Unfortunately, my mom also taught me just as there are good police officers, there are some not-so-good police officers that would assume the worst of me without knowing anything about me for reasons I can’t control. She taught me to be careful and be on the lookout for those not-so-good police officers because they could potentially do me harm and most times without consequences. Those are the police officers that should be offended.
“Being a police officer takes bravery. And I understand that they’re put in difficult positions and have to make those snap decisions. As a football player, I know a little bit about snap decisions, obviously on an extremely lesser and non-comparative scale, because when a police officer makes a snap decision, it’s literally a matter of life and death. That’s hard a situation to be in. But if the wrong decision is made, based on pre-conceived notions or the wrong motives, I believe there should be consequence. Because without consequence, naturally the magnitude of the snap decisions is lessened, whether consciously or unconsciously.
“I’m not an activist, in any way, shape or form. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I keep my opinions to myself on most matters. I worked extremely hard to build and keep my reputation especially here in Ohio, and by most accounts I’ve done a solid job of decently building a good name. Before I made the decision to wear the T-shirt, I understood I was putting that reputation in jeopardy to some of those people who wouldn’t necessarily agree with my perspective. I understood there was going to be backlash, and that scared me, honestly. But deep down I felt like it was the right thing to do. If I was to run away from what I felt in my soul was the right thing to do, that would make me a coward, and I can’t live with that. God wouldn’t be able to put me where I am today, as far as I’ve come in life, if I was a coward.
“As you well know, and it’s well documented, I have a 2-year-old little boy. The same 2-year-old little boy that everyone said was cute when I jokingly threw him out of the house earlier this year. That little boy is my entire world. And the No. 1 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. And my heart was broken for the parents of Tamir and John Crawford knowing they had to live that nightmare of a reality.
“So, like I said, I made the conscious decision to wear the T-shirt. I felt like my heart was in the right place. I’m at peace with it and those that disagree with me, this is America, everyone has the right to their first amendment rights. Those who support me, I appreciate your support. But at the same time, support the causes and the people and the injustices that you feel strongly about. Stand up for them. Speak up for them. No matter what it is because that’s what America’s about and that’s what this country was founded on.”
END ANDREW HAWKINS STATEMENT.
This chapter, “THE TOO SHORT LIFE OF TAMIR”, is excerpted from “THE LITTLE BOOK OF LYNCHING”, by Meg Langford. The new, second edition will be available on Amazon in the fall of 2016.