By Leila Atassi
Advance Ohio Media
CLEVELAND — Two and a half years after 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer, cleveland.com has obtained the videos - never before seen publicly -- of investigative interviews with the officers involved, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback.
The interviews, conducted within days of the Nov. 22, 2014 shooting outside Cudell Recreation Center, include details not previously reported of the events and offer new insight into the mindsets of the officers.
The videos also reveal some inconsistencies with the story Loehmann later told a grand jury in his written statement. Until now, that statement and Garmback’s offered the only public accounting from the officers’ perspectives. The grand jury eventually declined to indict the officers. But the city has introduced administrative charges, unrelated to the shooting itself, that could cost Loehmann and Garmback their jobs.
In agreeing to be interviewed on camera by homicide detectives and internal affairs officers, Garmback and Loehmann invoked their so-called Garrity rights, which protect public employees from incriminating themselves in statements to their employer.
The videos, posted here in their entirety, depict the officers - one emotional, one stoic -- in the aftermath of the shooting.
Here are some key moments.
Garmback’s interview:
Garmback told investigators that on the day of the shooting, he and Loehmann volunteered to help field the 911 call about a guy brandishing a gun in a park outside the recreation center.
As they hurried to the location, Garmback drilled his rookie trainee on how to handle a “gun run.”
"[Loehmann] said, ‘I would get out of the car. I’d get in a certain stance,’” Garmback later recalled for investigators. “I stopped him at that point and said, ‘This is a gun run. Be prepared for the worst-case scenario. Have your gun unholstered already on your lap.’”
Garmback went on to explain to Loehmann that they would drive their vehicle “the back way” through the grassy park, which would put the cruiser near the swings - the spot where the gunman was reported to be - to limit the suspect’s possibilities for escape.
Garmback faces administrative charges for driving too close to Tamir while responding to what the officer believed to be an armed suspect.
Garmback wept several times during his interview - recalling his realization that Tamir was a boy, the way Tamir looked as he lost consciousness and how long it took rescuers to arrive.
“He’s barely breathing, and there’s no rescue squad here,” Garmback said. “Finally, I’m holding [pressure on the wound]. ... Then [firefighters] come up. And they’re walking so slow. Other units are telling them to hurry up, get over there. They still walk slow.”
Loehmann’s interview:
Loehmann said that he opened his car door slightly when the cruiser was about 30 yards from Tamir, presented his weapon and started yelling: “Put your hands in the air! Let me see your weapon! Freeze!”
This account is inconsistent with his written statement to the grand jury, in which he said he hadn’t opened the door and begun yelling until the car was rolling to a stop. (Read the officers’ written statements in the document viewers below.)
An internal affairs investigator questioned Loehmann about the mechanics of holding open the passenger-side door of a moving vehicle, while also holding a gun in his dominant right hand.
Loehmann described the crouching posture he had to assume on the door’s threshold to be “prepared for anything.”
“The threat just became incredible,” Loehmann said. “I had to make the decision fast because Frank and I were in immediate danger. If the subject did pull out the gun and point it towards us, I would have been shot and possibly my partner. ... Plus, I was stuck in the doorway and my partner was still seated in the driver’s seat. So we were basically sitting ducks.”
Loehmann’s use of deadly force was found to have been justified under the circumstances. But he faces discipline for failing to note on his Cleveland police application that his short stint at the Independence Police Department had ended with a series of incidents that Loehmann’s superiors believed demonstrated his emotional instability.
Attorney Subodh Chandra, who represents the family of Tamir Rice, said in an email Friday that the videos “raise the stakes” for the pending charges against the officers.
“As public anguish regarding young Tamir’s slaying continues, the physically impossible accounts and inconsistencies the officers offer in their video-recorded interviews raise the stakes for this last chance at public accountability through the absurdly delayed discipline process,” Chandra said.
In an interview Monday, Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, blamed politics for the delay and the administrative charges brought against the officers, who, Loomis maintained, did nothing wrong.
“There is such a thirst for blood on this, and they are looking for every possible reason to fire them,” Loomis said. “And it’s because politics demand it. It’s an election year -- damn the facts. We’re not saying [Tamir’s death] wasn’t an absolute tragedy. But it was justified use of deadly force. Unfortunate, but justified.”
———
©2017 Advance Ohio Media, Cleveland