More Reason to Rise Up in NYC on October 22-24

Prosecutor Releases “Expert Reports” to Justify Police Murder of Tamir Rice

October 12, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On October 10, Timothy McGinty, the prosecutor leading the grand jury considering whether to charge the Cleveland cops who gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice almost 11 months ago, released two reports he had ordered. These reports, done by a retired FBI agent and a Denver prosecutor, have both concluded the killer cops were justified in murdering this Black child! The prosecutor cautioned people that the grand jury is still considering charges against the cops, but these reports are creating public opinion for letting these murderers walk.

This is BS. It is another reason why there must be a powerful outpouring of thousands upon thousands of people in NYC on October 22, 23 and 24. A system that would try to justify what these cops did to Tamir is no damn good and needs to be done away with through revolution as soon as possible. And the release of these reports makes clear why it's up to us to act to STOP Police Terror! They are telling us we can't believe what we saw with our own eyes on the video of the killing. These cops drove their car right at 12-year-old Tamir as he sat alone in a park, stopped a few feet from him and shot him in less than 2 seconds after they screeched to a halt. Yet these reports claim their actions were “reasonable.” How did they come to this conclusion?

One report cited “the speed with which the confrontation developed,” and the other claimed that the cop who killed Tamir was "in a position of great peril" because he was within a few feet of Rice and that "the officers did not create the violent situation.” This is lying pig talk aimed at covering up these cops’ murderous actions.

These murdering police did “create the violent situation” by charging to within a few feet of Tamir, which is why the confrontation developed so quickly. Both of the reports ignored the fact that Ohio is a state where it's legal to carry real guns, while basically claiming that the toy gun Tamir had was indistinguishable from a real gun. In effect, what they’re saying is that Tamir's black skin made it unnecessary for the cops to either consider whether the gun was real or respect Tamir's right to be armed. Saying that this killing was justified comes down to saying that Black people have no rights that the police have to respect.

The release of these reports must be met with outpourings of condemnation. The authorities are working on exonerating these murdering cops, just like they exonerated the cops who murdered Melissa Williams and Timothy Russell in a hail of 137 police bullets after a 20+ mile car chase in Cleveland.

If people don't take the streets with outrage over this and protest in other ways, it will be a signal to the authorities that they can continue and intensify the wave of police killings and of exonerations of killer cops. This outrage must be manifested not only in Cleveland, but across the country—and not only right now, but brought to NYC for #RiseUpOctober.

 

 

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