Memorial Portrait Poster of Tamir Rice
“Tamir Rice was gunned down by the Cleveland police on November 22, 2014. I mean it was a cold November day. Some snow was falling. Tamir was always over at the Cudell Rec. Center or that area. That day he walked back and forth from the rapid stop and to the outside of the center. Somebody called the police and said, “There’s a person here with a gun. I think it’s probably a toy gun.” The police raced over there. At that point Tamir was over by the kiosk just sitting on a bench. The toy gun wasn’t even out. The police roll up. Tamir gets off the bench to go towards the police to see what they want. The cops drove up and shot him within two seconds. At that point he fell on the ground. His sister ran over to see about Tamir and the police intercepted her, threw her to the ground viciously, and threw her in the police car.
This killing touched a nerve. People from Ferguson that were in the fight for justice for Michael Brown came in from out of town. There were a lot of people from different areas saying this was murder and the police needed to be indicted and sent to prison. Samaria, Tamir’s mother, said that. They got no justice. And the thing which was really a horrible slap in the face for the family and for the other people fighting for justice was that the police said they fired the cop, not because of the killing part, but because he falsified his application.”–Bill Swain