CLEVELAND, Jan. 1 (UPI) — More than 100 protesters stood outside the home of the prosecutor who failed to indict officers in the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, demanding the prosecutor’s resignation.
NBC News reported protesters have been calling for Tim McGinty’s resignation since the announcement earlier this week.
In a peaceful protest Saturday night, protesters stood in McGinty’s driveway demanding a federal investigation into Rice’s case. Police officers accompanied the protesters as they marched to McGinty’s home, and a protest leader told demonstrators not to vandalize McGinty’s home.
McGinty declined to comment.
Several protesters laid down on the sidewalk outside of McGinty’s home for four minutes — the length of time it took for first responders to reach Rice after he was shot.
Rice was killed by a police officer who was called to the scene after reports of a gunman. Rice reportedly had a pellet gun in the waistband of his pants, and when he reached for it, officers fired on the boy. A grand jury declined to indict the officer who killed Rice, sparking outrage in a year filled with similar stories of police killing unarmed black men.
McGinty announced the decision not to indict officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback in a press conference Monday.
“We told Rice’s mother that the state must be able to show that officers acted outside the constitutional boundaries set forth by these United States,” he said. “It was a ‘perfect storm of human error’ but did not equal criminal activity by the officers involved.”
Jonathan Abady, the attorney representing Rice’s family, issued a statement slamming McGinty after the decision was announced:
“It has been clear for months now that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty was abusing and manipulating the grand jury process to orchestrate a vote against indictment,” the statement said. “Even though video shows the police shooting Tamir in less than one second, Prosecutor McGinty hired so-called expert witnesses to try to exonerate the officers and tell the grand jury their conduct was reasonable and justified.”
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