Blogged By: @carmen.roxannaTalk about a slap in the face! Former Cleveland Police Officer Timothy Loehmann, who fatally shot and killed 12-year-old #TamirRice in 2014, has now been hired as a part-time officer for the small Ohio town of Bellaire.
Bellaire Police Chief Richard Flanagan said he believes Loehmann deserves a second chance. Flanagan said, “He was cleared of any and all wrongdoing. He was never charged. It’s over and done with.”
Loehmann was unfortunately never indicted by a grand jury for Rice’s killing and although he was fired following the shooting, it wasn’t because of the shooting itself but because he lied about his poor job history as an officer. He was forced to resign from his short tenure with the Independence Police Department after he was deemed unfit to be a police officer. He also failed an exam given by the Maple Heights Police Department in Ohio in 2009.
Attorney Subodh Chandra, who represented Rice’s family in a federal wrongful-death and civil-rights lawsuit, said Tamir’s mother, Samaria Rice, holds firm in her belief that Loehmann “doesn’t belong on any police force anywhere.”
What do you think of this? Should he have been given the right to “protect and serve” again?
