Captain fired over posts files lawsuit

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

A former emergency medical services captain fired for Facebook posts about a 12-year-old black boy fatally shot by a white officer is suing the city of Cleveland.

Cleveland.com reports Jamie Marquardt’s federal lawsuit filed Monday says the posts, including one saying Marquardt was glad Tamir Rice was dead, were put on his Facebook account by someone else. The lawsuit says Marquardt deleted the posts.

But the lawsuit says the posts were constitutionally protected speech even though posted by someone else, and that Cleveland violated his rights by firing him in 2016.

Tamir was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in 2014 when he was shot by a policeman who thought the weapon was real.