In a statement to investigators obtained by the Associated Press, Loehmann justified killing Rice by saying, “I knew it was a gun and I knew it was coming out.” The person who called 911 had informed emergency dispatchers that it was probably just a toy.
“The suspect lifted his shirt, reached down into his waistband. We continued to yell ‘show me your hands,’” Loehmann said in the statement. “I was focused on the suspect. Even when he was reaching into his waistband, I didn’t fire. I still was yelling the command ‘show me your hands.’”
The officer shot the pre-teen child twice, on November 22, 2014, and he died in the hospital the next day.
Many on social media are already pointing out how improbable it is that in the two seconds between the officer jumping out of his vehicle and shooting the young boy they managed to warn him three times, and they aren’t alone.
Subodh Chandra, the attorney for Tamir's family, also released a statement asserting that the officers' statements were contradictory and did not make sense.
"Loehmann, for example, insists that he observed things and took action that would have been physically impossible for any human being to do in the under two seconds it took him to shoot a 12-year-old child," he said.
Chandra also wrote that Loehmann claimed that he had issued at least three commands to "show me your hands," but that Frank Garmback, the other officer on the scene said he thought the cruiser's windows were rolled up as they drove toward Tamir, the AP reported.
“The threat to my partner and myself was real and active,” Loehmann insisted to the investigators, apparently unphased by the fact that he killed a child for playing with a toy in the park.
The death of Rice sparked national outcry, as the latest in a pattern of police brutality against minorities. The shooting of unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson just a few months prior had shined a bright light on the racial injustices still prevalent in the United States.
Activists and Attorneys for the Rice family have lead a charge asking for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the case, after he released reports stating that the officer had not done anything wrong.
