CLEVELAND — Editor's Note: The above video is from previous reporting on Timothy Loehmann
UPDATE: July 7, 2:30 p.m.
The Tioga Borough announced on its website Thursday that Timothy Loehmann has withdrawn his application.
FULL STORY: Former Cleveland police officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice withdraws application from Pennsylvania borough
Original Story:
The former Cleveland officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice in 2014 has been hired to join a police department in rural Pennsylvania.
According to NBC affiliate WETM 18, Loehmann was sworn in earlier this week as the Tioga Borough Police Officer. Tioga Mayor David Wilcox told WETM that the council did not allow him to see Loehmann’s resume when they interviewed him, adding that he had nothing to do with the hiring process.
Hours after the meeting, Council President Steve Hazlett posted a photo on Facebook, saying “Timothy Loehmann is your new Tioga police officer.” The photo showed Loehmann getting sworn in at the meeting.
"It’s really pathetic and sad that anybody would give this man a job," Tamir Rice's mother Samaria told 3News. "Timothy Loehmann should never have a job, nowhere across the country, after murdering my son."
"Tioga officials apparently don’t care whether a police officer was unfit for one department, lied on his application to another, rushed upon and slew a child, and then lied about calling out warnings to that child when his window was rolled up on a winter's day," added Rice family attorney Subodh Chandra in a statement to 3News. "Loehmann - who should never again be entrusted with a badge and gun - is shamelessly determined to inflict himself upon other communities. Let’s hope Tioga residents have the good sense to question the judgement of their misguided and indifferent officials."
It appears that Chandra's hopes of a course change in Tioga may happen.
During a demonstration in Tioga on Wednesday evening, Wilcox was asked about the hiring of Loehmann. “I make his schedule, so I would determine the day that he’s actually patrolling," Wilcox told a gathering in video captured by WETM. "At this point, it’s not happening."
12-year-old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by Loehmann on November 22, 2014 after police received a call about a "guy with a pistol" outside of Cleveland's Cudell Recreation Center. Rice had been playing with a pellet gun and officers said that they did not know that he was a juvenile and that he was playing with a toy before he was fatally shot twice.
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.
In 2015, an Ohio grand jury declined to charge Loehmann. He was fired in 2016 after an investigation showed that he lied on his application to become a police officer.
Loehmann attempted to join the Bellaire Police Department in 2018, but resigned just days after being hired.
In 2021, an appeals court upheld Loehmann's firing and the Ohio Supreme Court later declined to take his appeal. No member of the Cleveland Division of Police was ever charged as a result of Rice's death.
Previous Reporting: