Tamir Rice police killer will not face jury

There were two shootings of Black people by the police - caught on camera – that shook America to the core. One was by the police officer, Micheal Slager who not only shot Walter Scott in the back whilst he was running away, but he then proceeded to fabricate the shooting by calling for back up and arranging the man’s lifeless body to bolster his  intended lies that he shot Scott whilst being attacked.

The other was the shooting of a 12 year boy, Tamir Rice, who was in a play area on his own playing with a toy gun-as many young boys do- when two police officers mounted the pavement in their car got out, and within two seconds one police officer Timothy Loehmann had shot the boy dead.

We  now learn at a hearing that was purposely hidden during the festive break-28th Dec- that justice for Tamir Rice, his mother and Black America, will not be done. Worse still it won’t even be seen to be done.

A grand jury, in its wisdom decided that Loehmann wouldn’t even face a jury over the fatal shooting of Rice. Rice’s desperate and grieving mother Samaria Rice told reporters that:

"Due to the corrupt system, I have a dead child”

Rice further added:

"I feel like breath has been taken out my body again, and it’s a struggle.”

The footage of the killing is compelling in as much we see the police car enter a play area, after their advice to investigate from an inquiry of 'a boy with a gun which could be a toy gun'.

In his defence Loehmann stated that he shouted to the boy to, ‘put the gun down.’ But because there is no sound to the CCTV, we’ll never know if Loehmann is telling the truth. What we do know  is that from getting out of their police car within two seconds –one, two –a 12 year boy was dead. It’s difficult to even say ‘put the gun down’ in two seconds, much less wait for a response.

We may have a Black President but when lives are snuffed out by the authorities who are there to protect us, and nobody is held to account, then Black America can rightly feel that too often, Black lives don’t matter.

And for those disgusting celebraties such as Piers Morgan who rubbished the #BlackLivesMatter campaign, with an infamous put-down tweet that, ‘#All lives matter’ should have the good grace to look at this most profound racial injustice and ponder the pain that Samaria Rice has to endure not only losing her son, but knowing that his killer won’t even be tried by a jury of his peers.

The #BlackLivesMatter campaign continues.

Simon Woolley