CLEVELAND (AP) — Cleveland police planned to release surveillance video from an officer’s fatal shooting of a 12-year-old boy who turned out to be carrying a replica gun.
A department spokeswoman said video and audio evidence would be released Wednesday afternoon, when police Chief Calvin Williams provides an update on the investigation.
Tamir Rice was shot Saturday by an officer responding to a call about someone with a gun near a playground. Police say Tamir was told to raise his hands, then reached into his waistband for what appeared to be a firearm. Police later determined it was an airsoft gun, which typically shoots tiny plastic pellets, but it was missing an orange safety indicator.
The family’s attorneys saw the video Monday, a day after Rice died. They later called for the full footage to be released publicly.
City officials had been withholding the video, saying that it was evidence in the investigation and that they wanted to be sensitive to the family, the community and the officer, whom they described as distraught.
Police haven’t discussed details of what the video shows, but Deputy Chief Edward Tomba said the footage is “very clear” about what occurred.
The shooting has led to an investigation of the officer’s use of force and protests referencing this and other police-involved shootings.
On Tuesday evening, several hundred demonstrators marched down an exit ramp and temporarily blocked rush-hour traffic on a busy Cleveland freeway. Police diverted traffic but didn’t take action against the protesters, who chanted phrases such as “Hands up, don’t shoot” and “No justice, no peace.”
The demonstration came as protesters across the country decried a grand jury’s decision not to indict a white police officer who killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.
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