U.S. Boy Shot by Police Yet to be Buried as Investigation Drags On
An investigation into the police shooting of a 12-year-old African-American boy is taking so long that he has yet to be buried five months after his death, lawyers said Monday.
Tamir Rice was holding a pellet gun when he was fatally shot on November 22 in a Cleveland playground, in a shocking incident caught on surveillance video.
"Less than a second and my son is gone, and I want to know: How long I got to wait for justice?" his mother Samaria Rice told a news conference in the Ohio city.
"We want justice for Tamir," added the boy's uncle Michael Petty, who called for the case to be turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) if local authorities fail to pick up the pace.
In a court filing, lawyers for the Rice family said the Cuyahoga County sheriff's office, which took over the case from Cleveland city police in January, has yet to contact the boy's parents and relatives.
"Because it is unknown whether there may need to be an additional medical examination, the body of Tamir Rice has not been put to rest," it added.
"Tamir Rice not being finally laid to rest prevents emotional healing and incurs a daily expense. The foot-dragging of this investigation has now spanned three seasons."
Rice is the youngest of a number of African-Americans whose deaths at the hands of law enforcement stirred a national debate about police conduct and race relations and which, in three cases, prompted criminal action.
- Six charged -
Last Friday, prosecutors charged six police officers in Baltimore, Maryland after the death in custody of 25-year-old Freddie Gray prompted protest and riots in the port city.
Earlier in April, a white officer was charged with murder in the fatal shooting of 50-year-old Walter Scott after a routine traffic stop in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, a white reserve deputy sheriff in Tulsa County is accused of manslaughter after he fatally shot a suspect in a sting operation after, he claimed, mistaking his own firearm for a stun gun.
All three incidents were also captured on video, prompting civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump to ask why it was taking so long by comparison for the authorities in Ohio to act.
"This foot-dragging investigation is slower than molasses in the wintertime,” added Walter Madison, another lawyer for the Rice family.
Monday's court filing was a response to an attempt by the city of Cleveland to halt a wrongful death lawsuit that the Rice family initiated in federal court in December.
The industrial city of 390,000 wants that lawsuit put on hold so long as the Cuyahoga County sheriff department's investigation is still underway.
Any findings from the investigation would be put before a grand jury, which would decide whether to indict the two officers involved.
Source: Agence France Presse
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