Dismantling begins on park gazebo where boy was killed

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Work began Wednesday on dismantling a gazebo outside a Cleveland recreation center where a 12-year-old black boy was fatally shot by a white policeman in preparation for it to be reassembled outside a Chicago arts organization.

The gazebo has become a national symbol in the outcry over police shootings of black men and boys. The shooting victim, Tamir Rice, had been playing with a pellet gun. He was shot in November 2014 within two seconds of a police cruiser skidding to a stop near him.

The director of programs for the Rebuild Foundation, Amy Schachman, said she would remain in Cleveland until the dismantling of the gazebo is completed next week. Plans call for the gazebo to be reassembled outside an arts gallery and community space called Stony Island Arts Bank.

Work crews on Wednesday scraped from the gazebo roof shingles that Schachman said won’t be reused but will be preserved. The wooden planks and trusses from which the roof was built will be numbered and dismantled.

City resident Ann Pallotta was at the Cudell Recreation Center on Wednesday morning waiting for the work to begin. She said she and children from the neighborhood planted next to the gazebo a butterfly garden intended to help the children heal. She said the children had a “jumbled bunch of emotions” as they grieved for their friend.

Pallotta said she finds the gazebo distasteful and hoped the space can be “rehabilitated” and a proper memorial can be created.