cleveland City to tear down gazebo where boy was shot

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

The city plans to dismantle a gazebo that’s become a makeshift memorial at a recreation center where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by a rookie patrolman.

Flowers and stuffed animals had been left at the gazebo where Tamir, a black boy, was sitting moments before he was shot outside Cudell Recreation Center in November 2014 by a white officer.

Tamir was carrying a borrowed airsoft gun that looked like a real gun but shot nonlethal plastic pellets. It was missing its telltale orange tip.

The city issued a statement Friday saying it had previously considered dismantling the gazebo but needed to wait until a criminal investigation and a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed by Tamir’s family were resolved. It plans to dismantle the gazebo next week.

A document filed Monday in federal court disclosed that Cleveland had agreed to settle the lawsuit for $6 million while not admitting any wrongdoing. Rice family attorney Subodh Chandra said Friday that a request by Samaria Rice, Tamir’s mother, to have the gazebo torn down was an informal part of the settlement.

A grand jury in December chose not to indict the rookie patrolman, Timothy Loehmann, or his training officer, Frank Garmback, on criminal charges.

Grainy footage from a surveillance camera shows Loehmann shooting Tamir less than two seconds after a cruiser skidded to a stop just feet from him. Loehmann said Tamir was reaching for a gun tucked in his waistband when he shot him and Tamir didn’t heed warnings to show his hands.

The officers were sent to the recreation center after a 911 caller reported that a man was waving a gun and pointing it at people. A call taker never relayed the caller’s comments to a police dispatcher that the gun might be a fake and the man could be a juvenile.