How could it not?
Homicide just means killed by another person.
I’m sure the prosecutor will do a good job of deciding if there’s a charge of criminal homicide to answer.
But from a distance, did the gun look like a replica, or a toy?
It takes three steps to get justice for Tamir. This is only the first, and is the only one that was not in doubt.
It would have been spectacularly far-fetched for the autopsy to have made any other finding.
- Coroner rules death to be homicide
- Grand jury indicts
- Officers convicted in a trial.
One down (the easy one), Two to go.
So now we need cops to have metal detectors as well as cameras?
You mean, over the course of the two seconds it took for the officer to open fire with lethal force?
If I pull up in a car and jump out, you could wave a hot dog at me and I couldn’t tell the difference.
Of course, he was a trained professional.
Trained to serve, protect, and defuse situations.
Just a friendly reminder to all the arseholes out there, Ohio is an open carry state.
I would prefer they had training and consequences. Friend-o.
It did not look distinctly like a toy. I cannot fault the cops for thinking it was real. It looks very much like a real gun. Homicide only means killed by another person and that is something we already knew. I saw the video, and it did look like the kid tried to pull something out of his waistband quickly just as the cops arrived. Perhaps he was trying to show them it was a toy. Hell, he was 12. Maybe he thought the cops were playing with him. He was also 5 foot 7 and 195 lbs which makes him the size of many adults.
I have doubts that anyone can order someone to show their hands two or three times in a 1.5 to 2 seconds and realistically be expected to be understood or to have time to comply, but I can easily see why the kid got shot. The cops were told it was a real gun, even though the caller said he thought it might be a toy, and a kid was playing with a real-looking gun. I can’t reasonably ask a cop to wait to see what sort of bullet come out of a suspect’s gun before he shoots, can I? The cops saw an adult who supposedly had been waving a gun around and who went to draw it as they arrived. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t get shot.
I think if the cops had been told that the caller mentioned that it might be a toy (I can’t find that quote, sorry), the officers might have approached differently. If the gun had looked like a toy, maybe he would be alive as well. Air-soft guns look very authentic. That is part of their popularity. This is terrible, but I simply cannot see this as a case of “bad cop decides to shoot a black kid”.
I do.
Well if we’re dissecting all the hypotheticals, how might the police have acted differently if Tamir Rice had been white?
Might they have waited longer? Given instructions? Been less trigger happy?
Exactly. Example I found in 10 seconds searching is, however, Michigan, not Ohio.
etc etc
edit for video link
What % of Americans understand that a coroner/autopsy result of “homicide” doesn’t mean that the coroner thinks it was murder?
White people get to aim guns at police all the time, forget about just going for the waistband.
That’s also an easy one, provided the DA is remotely honest about how he pursues it.
Aye, and there’s the rub 
So wait… if he looks like an adult, doesn’t he have Second Amendment rights? You can’t just assume everyone holding a gun in the United States has homicidal intent. Unless they’re Black. [Colbert mode] Was he Black? Maybe that was the problem?
Yes, the police absolutely needed to get well within firing range to defuse a situation where there were no bystanders. That was clearly an example of them being prudent and dealing with the situation in the most responsible way possible.
I mean, it’s not like the cop who shot him had dismal handgun performance in his record or anything.
Really? So the cop is supposed to wait for someone’s bullet to be flying towards him before he decides whether he needs to defend himself? Are cops supposed to be Neo from the Matrix as well and calmly watch the bullet go by? What are you thinking?
Ridiculous.
No, no, no and probably not.
Still, regardless of skin color, I wouldn’t take the chance. I also think this situation was somewhat different than the more blatant examples of police aggression and abuse we’ve been reading about lately but still a tragedy.
You are completely and repeatedly failing to address the question posed.
Given the fact that crazy or drunk, gun toting whites regularly are not killed by police when waving their guns around, why wouldn’t you expect the police to behave in exactly the same manner in this instance?
I am thinking that the police should have to be sure (far) beyond reasonable doubt that they are in immediate danger for their lives before they shoot people to death.
I’m happy to say that (while obviously I’d prefer no-one to get shot at all), I would prefer police getting shot to unarmed children.
Also that the police shouldn’t handle things in a way that puts them in a situation where they are so scared that they kill unarmed children seconds after approaching them.
Your mileage may vary.
