CLEVELAND — Editor's note: The video in the player above is from a story published on April 21, 2021.
During a meeting on Monday, Cleveland City Council will consider asking the U.S. Justice Department to reopen the investigation into the 2014 police shooting death of Tamir Rice.
3News will stream the 2:30 p.m. Council meeting on our WKYC Facebook and Youtube pages, as well as in the player at the top of this story.
Just two weeks ago, the Rice family sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the AG to reopen the case into the 12-year-old's death. The plea was later echoed by several Ohio lawmakers, including Sen. Sherrod Brown, Rep. Tim Ryan, and Rep. Marcy Kaptur.
Following the April conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the 2020 death of George Floyd, Subodh Chandra, the attorney who represents the family of Tamir Rice, released a statement calling for more accountability in police-related shootings.
"There's so many other instances where it hasn't (police accountability) that it raises fundamental questions about how much overwhelming force does it take in a courtroom before 12 jurors will finally find a police officer guilty of misconduct. Or for prosecutors to even seek an indictment, which has been a serious problem in police accountability cases," Chandra said.
The young boy was shot by a Cleveland Division of Police officer after officials had received a call about a "guy with a pistol" outside of a Cleveland recreation center.
The caller, who was drinking a beer and waiting for a bus, told a 911 dispatcher that it was probably a juvenile and the gun might be "fake," though that information was never relayed to the officers.
Rice had in fact been playing with a pellet gun and officers said that they did not know that he was a juvenile or that the item he was carrying was a toy. He was shot twice.
In late April, the officer responsible for shooting Tamir, Timothy Loehmann, filed an appeal to get his job back after a 2017 investigation revealed that he had lied on his application to the police academy.
The appeal seeks to have the United States Supreme Court step in on the matter.
Editor's note: The video in the player below is from a story published on April 16, 2021.