Tamir Rice Cop Shooting Video: 911 Operator Didn't Tell Cleveland, Ohio Police Officers Boy Was Suspected of Carrying a Toy Gun
The death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer while carrying a toy gun in November, may have been prevented if a 911 dispatcher would have communicated a key detail to the cops who responded to the call.
New reports identify the dispatcher who conveyed the 911 call to cops as Beth Mandl. It was also discovered she failed to tell officers the caller stated Rice's gun "was probably fake." However, it remains unclear if the error was made by Mandl or if "the person who took the original 911 call" omitted this detail when speaking to Mandl, reports the Courier-Post.
The Northeast Ohio Media Group also found Mandl was fired from a previous dispatch job in 2008 after being arrested for carrying a weapon into a bar, reports Cleveland.com.
On the day of the shooting, Nov. 22, 2014, Rice was recorded by a surveillance video walking around and waving a pellet gun outside the Cudell Recreation Center. A man then called 911 to report he saw someone pointing a gun at people. Although the caller stated several times the weapon was probably a toy, the dispatcher did not transmit that information to the responding officers. As a result, the officers believed they were looking for an adult black male on a "gun run," Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said, according to NBC News.
The surveillance also revealed rookie cop Timothy Loehmann fatally shot the boy two seconds after arriving on the scene. Rice was then left lying in the grass, bleeding to death, for four minutes until a detective and FBI agent arrived. Rice died the following day a hospital.
An autopsy report confirmed Rice suffered from a single gunshot to the left side of his abdomen. The bullet then traveled from front to back and lodged in his pelvis. The cause of death was a "gunshot wound of the torso with injuries of major vessel, intestines and pelvis," reads paperwork provided by the medical examiner's communications office, reports CNN.
The two officers involved in the shooting have since been placed on paid administrative leave.
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