On the face of it, the family of Tamir Rice already has grounds for one whopper of a lawsuit. The officer who killed Rice, Timothy Loehmann, opened fire only 1.5 seconds after he arrived–nowhere near enough time to give Rice a warning. Additionally, Cleveland police failed to adequately vet Loehmann’s past employment history. Had it done so, it would have discovered that Loehmann had been forced to resign from the police department in nearby Independence due to concerns that he wasn’t mentally stable enough to be an officer. Additionally, Loehmann was hired despite admitting to working under the table in the time after his forced resignation.
Well, Rice’s family may have just gotten more ammunition this week. We already know that the original 911 call on November 22 said that someone who appeared to be a juvenile was walking around the Cudell Recreation Center with a gun that was “probably fake.” However, this information was never relayed to police. The $64,000 question in this case–who forgot to pass this information on? Was it the 911 operator who took the call, or the dispatcher who sent police to the scene?
On Wednesday, the city of Cleveland released the names and personnel records of both the 911 operator, Constance Hollinger, and the police dispatcher, Beth Mandl. It’s not clear who failed to pass along the critical details. While WEWS-TV in Cleveland quotes city officials as saying that Hollinger never told Mandl that the original caller said Rice was a juvenile and the gun was likely a toy, WOIO in Cleveland quotes sources in the chief of police’s office as saying that Mandl never spoke to Hollinger. Instead, the call was transferred from Hollinger to Mandl via a computer screen. A definitive answer may come very soon, though. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer has made a FOIA request for any communication between Hollinger and Mandl.
WEWS obtained a copy of Cleveland’s dispatch policy. Read it here. It’s somewhat vague on what information must be relayed to officers. All it says is that dispatchers must “relay all information included in an incident.” You would think, though, that you wouldn’t need a specific clause to know that officers need to be aware they’re dealing with a juvenile–or that a gun may be fake.
One thing is clear beyond all doubt. If not for a serious–and as it turned out, catastrophic–breakdown in communication, there’s a pretty good chance Tamir Rice would still be alive. Hopefully we’re close to finding out who is responsible for this breakdown.
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Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
