The mayor of Cleveland, Ohio issued an apology on Monday following outrage over new court documents filed by city officials that blame Tamir Rice -- the 12-year-old boy who was fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer while carrying a toy gun in November -- for his own death.

Rice died on Nov. 22 after police mistook his pellet gun for a real firearm and fatally shot him in a park. Since the shooting, the victim's relatives have filed a federal lawsuit against the city for excessive police force, negligence and failure by police to immediately provide first aid.

In response to the suit, city officials filed court papers last Friday accusing the child of being responsible for his own death.

The documents state that Rice's injuries resulted from a failure "to exercise due care to avoid injury," reports USA Today.

City attorneys also declared that Tamir and his family "were directly and proximately caused by their own acts," reports Fox News.

"It's incredible that they would take such a posture, such and insensitive position instead of just acknowledging bad behavior," said the Rice family lawyer, Walter Madison, on Sunday. "I think the more healthy thing for them to do is to come together, acknowledge that they're wrong, work on solutions so that this never happens again and allow this family to properly heal instead of insult them."

In an interview with The Washington Post, Madison said the court documents are "incredulous at best." He also stated that the city's response to the family lawsuit is further evidence of police arrogance.

"There are a number of things that we in society don't allow 12-year-olds to do. We don't allow them to vote, we don't allow them to drink. In court we don't try them as adults. They don't have the capacity to understand the consequences of their actions."

Mayor Frank G. Jackson apologized to the Rice family and Cleveland on Monday afternoon residents "for our poor use of words and our insensitivity" in the docs.

"In an attempt to protect all of our defenses, we used words and we phrased things in such a way that was very insensitive," he said at a news conference. "Very insensitive to tragedy in general, the family and the victim in particular."

He also said the city would file an amended court document using different language.

Surveillance of the shooting shows that Tamir was walking around and waving a pellet gun outside the Cudell Recreation Center. A man then called 911 to report someone pointing a gun at people. Although the caller stated several times that 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 that 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 at hospital.