Outside experts called the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice justified
Two reports from use of force experts released Saturday said a Cleveland police officer acted reasonably in fatally shooting Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy, The Plain Dealer reports.
In November 2014, Rice was playing in a park with a toy gun officers said they believed was real. Officer Tim Loehmann's shooting of him was caught on video.
"The question is not whether every officer would have reacted the same way," retired FBI agent Kimberly A. Crawford wrote in one report. "Rather, the relevant inquiry is whether a reasonable officer, confronting the exact same scenario under identical conditions could have concluded that deadly force was necessary."
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Rice's death, along with others including Michael Brown's in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner's in Staten Island, New York, sparked nationwide protests against the police shootings of unarmed black people.
These reports will be among the evidence presented by the Cuyahoga County prosecutor to a grand jury tasked with deciding whether the two officers involved will be criminally indicted.
