CLEVELAND (AP) – Cleveland’s mayor says he didn’t trust a state agency to investigate the fatal police shooting of a 12-year-old boy who was carrying a pellet gun, because he believes the agency mishandled the investigation of a different shooting that led to charges against officers and a settlement with the families of two people killed.
Mayor Frank Jackson explained Sunday how his thinking on the Tamir Rice case was influenced by the review of a November 2012 chase that ended with police killing two unarmed suspects in East Cleveland by firing 137 rounds at them, the Northeast Ohio Media Group (http://bit.ly/1vS1I2W ) reported.
Jackson said the city decided to hand over the investigation of Tamir’s Nov. 22 shooting to the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office because he wasn’t confident a proper, transparent investigation would be conducted if the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Ohio’s attorney general handled it.
“I don’t think the state attorney general handled the East Cleveland shooting properly,” said Jackson, a Democrat. “It wasn’t done in a way that I think gave me confidence that this would have been done properly. So that’s why we turned to the county.”
A U.S. Department of Justice review conducted after the East Cleveland chase found a pattern and practice of Cleveland officers using excessive force and violating people’s civil rights. Negotiations have begun on a court-ordered agreement to make changes within the police department.