Cleveland has approved a $6 million settlement for the family of Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed by police in November 2014, reports The New York Times.
The 12-year-old boy who was seen carrying a fake firearm on Nov. 22 was killed by police officer Timothy Loehmann who responded to an inaccurate 911 call of a man waving a gun in the vicinity of a playground. The dispatcher failed to communicate to the responding officers that the caller reported seeing a youth with a gun that was "probably fake."
In the settlement, the city does not admit wrongdoing in the shooting of Rice.
Samira Rice, the victim's mother, sued the city, claiming Cleveland police violated her son's civil rights. A surveillance video captured the moment officers arrived at the scene; Loehmann opened fire less than a second after getting out of the patrol car, striking Rice once in the chest a few yards away.
The settlement is likely the largest that Cleveland has ever had to pay for a civil rights claim, and one of the nation's largest settlements in recent years, reports the Daily News. New York City settled with Eric Garner's family for $5.9 million in July 2015.
“Although it’s historic in financial terms, no amount of money can adequately compensate for the loss of a life,” said two of Tamir’s lawyers, Earl Ward and Jonathan Abady of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP in a statement. “Tamir was 12 years old when he was shot and killed by police — a young boy with his entire life ahead of him, full of potential and promise.”
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