A white police officer in Cleveland, Ohio, was justified in fatally shooting a 12-year-old African American boy holding an air gun moments after pulling up beside him, according to two outside reviews.
The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office in Ohio released two reports Saturday which seek to justify the killing of Tamir Rice last November by rookie patrolman Timothy Loehmann.
A retired FBI agent and a Denver prosecutor have both concluded in separate reports that the fatal shooting was a reasonable response to a perceived threat.
The reports were released ahead of an expected decision by a grand jury on whether Loehmann will be charged in the fatal shooting.
Surveillance video shows Rice shot dead by Loehmann just seconds after a police vehicle pulled up beside him on a playground in Cleveland.
The police had received a call about someone brandishing a gun. An audio recording released by police indicated that the caller had said the gun was probably fake and the person might be an adolescent.
The pellet gun Tamir was holding shoots non-lethal plastic projectiles by means of compressed air.
In June, a comprehensive database published by the Guardian newspaper showed that US police kill more Americans in days than the police in other countries do in years.
African Americans and other minorities constitute the majority of police shooting victims.
The United States has “by far the most violent” law enforcement agencies in the world, which is exacerbated by the dominant gun culture and societal violence in the country, according to Richard Falk, an expert on international law and professor emeritus at Princeton University.