Cleveland will pay $6M in death of Tamir Rice, shot by police while playing with toy gun
The city of Cleveland has agreed to pay $6 million to settle a suit in the 2014 death of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy shot by police in what prosecutors called “a perfect storm of errors.”
The settlement, which requires probate court approval, was reached after a mediation session overseen by a federal judge in Cleveland, report the New York Times, Cleveland.com and the Washington Post.
The terms include no admission of wrongdoing by the city of Cleveland, according to a court document (PDF) filed on Monday by the mediator, U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster.
Rice was killed by officers while playing with a toy gun in a park. Grand jurors refused to indict the officers based on the recommendation of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, prosecutor Timothy McGinty, who failed to win re-election last month.
McGinty said officers had a reasonable belief that the gun was real. He noted that the dispatcher didn’t relay to the officers that a 911 caller said the gun was probably a toy.
The Times says the settlement would be “the latest in a series of seven-figure payouts by major American cities to the families of African-Americans who died at the hands of officers.”
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