Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who shot and killed Tamir Rice in 2014 while the 12-year-old was playing with a fake gun, has been fired by the city of Cleveland, according to the Washington Post.
Loehmann was reportedly fired as a result of an investigation that found that he lied on his employment application to the police department – and officials explicitly stated that it was not because he shot Rice. On the other hand, officer Frank Garmback, who was driving the police car when Loehmann killed Rice, has been suspended for 10 days – and his suspension is due to the way he handled the incident that killed Rice.
While Tamir Rice’s family received a $6 million settlement from the city of Cleveland, the city and police department incited outrage and protests after neither Loehmann or Garmback was indicted. Until now, the investigations of the two officers found that they allegedly didn’t violate any police department policies.
“I am relieved Loehmann has been fired because he should never have been a police officer in the first place — but he should have been fired for shooting my son in less than one second, not just for lying on his application,” Samaria Rice, Tamir Rice’s mother, said in a statement in response to the news of Loehmann’s firing.
The firing and suspension of the two police officers concludes a two-year investigation into the incident, in which Loehmann and Garmback responded to a 911 call about “a guy” pointing a possibly “fake” gun at people. The 911 dispatcher from the call was already fired earlier this year for failing to tell Loehmann and Garmback that Rice was a juvenile and that the gun was possibly fake.