NBCommentary: So that's how it's done. To avoid a federal civil rights trial, the Rice Estate gets $6million. Meanwhile, no criminal charges against the officers that killed Tamir. For some reason this just seems a bit strange to me.
By MITCH SMITH APRIL 25, 2016
Cleveland Mayor on Tamir Rice Settlement
By REUTERS
Cleveland
Mayor on Tamir Rice Settlement
Mayor Frank Jackson
announced a $6 milllion settlement with the family of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old
killed by the police, but said no price could be put on the life of a child.
By REUTERS
on Publish Date April 25, 2016.
Photo by Tony
Dejak/Associated Press. Watch
in Times Video »
CHICAGO — The family
of Tamir
Rice, the 12-year-old boy whose fatal shooting by the Cleveland police in
2014 prompted national outrage, is set to receive $6 million from the city in a
settlement announced Monday in federal court records.
The settlement,
which 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,
spares Cleveland the possibility of a federal civil rights trial that could have
drawn new attention to Tamir’s death and to the city’s troubled police force.
It also allows the city to avoid the possibility of an even larger judgment.
Cleveland officials
said the settlement was the city’s largest in a police-related lawsuit, though
under the terms of the agreement, the city does not admit wrongdoing. The $6
million figure is in line with settlements in the deaths of Eric Garner in New
York and Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
Lawyers for the Rice
family had been meeting with Cleveland officials to discuss a settlement since
early last month. The agreement must still be approved by a probate court.
For the Rice family,
which had called for criminal charges against the rookie officer who opened
fire almost immediately after encountering Tamir on Nov. 22, 2014, the
settlement means a significant payment and an end to civil proceedings. But it
does nothing to change the decision by a Cuyahoga County grand jury last year
to not
indict the officer, Timothy Loehmann. Lawyers for Tamir’s estate said
Monday that “no amount of money can adequately compensate” the boy’s relatives
for their grief.
By Brent McDonald
and Michael Kirby Smith
After
Death of Tamir Rice, Pain Lingers
Family and friends
of Tamir Rice, 12, struggle with their loss five months after a Cleveland
police officer fatally shot the boy as he played with a toy gun in a park.
By Brent
McDonald and Michael Kirby Smith on Publish DateApril 22, 2015. Photo
by Brent McDonald/The New York Times. Watch
in Times Video »
“In a situation like
this, there’s no such thing as closure or justice,” the lawyers, Jonathan S.
Abady and Earl S. Ward, said in a statement. “Nothing will bring Tamir back.
His unnecessary and premature death leaves a gaping hole for those who knew and
loved him that can never be filled.”
The Rice settlement
provides another example of a city choosing to settle for millions of dollars
rather than to contest a wrongful-death lawsuit in court.
This month, Chicago
aldermen approved paying $4.95 million to the family of a man
experiencing a mental health crisis who died after being dragged from his cell
in handcuffs and shocked repeatedly with a Taser.
They also approved $1.5 million to the estate of an asthmatic man who died
after a police foot chase; witnesses said he had been denied access to his
inhaler.
Continue Reading...... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/us/tamir-rice-family-cleveland-settlement.html
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Thanks for your comment. Peace, NB