CLEVELAND — A decade ago, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer while he was playing with a toy gun near Cudell Park.
When Tamir died in 2014, he was the youngest of four children. His mother, Samaria Rice, said he was still playing with trucks and Legos and watching cartoons.
His death would resonate beyond Cleveland as he became a national symbol in the Black Lives Matter movement.
"Like a nightmare... "
On the tenth anniversary of her son's death, Tamir's mother, Samaria, told News 5 Investigator Sarah Buduson that she still feels like she is living in a nightmare she can't wake up from.
"I never get a chance to rest from it," she said.
She misses her son, who she described as affectionate, loving, helpful, and funny.
"He was really like the glue that sticks it all together," he said. "He was my completion, you know."
She remains frustrated Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who shot and killed her son, and his partner, Frank Garmback, were never criminally charged.
"They should be in prison," she said. "It's sickening to have to deal with it."
She said her son's loss is a wound that won't heal.
"You know how you have a puzzle you can't find a piece? It's just a piece missing," she said. "That's kind of how it feels for me. My piece is missing and I'm never going to get it back."
The shooting
On the afternoon of Nov. 22, 2014, Cleveland police responded to Cudell Recreation Center for a report of someone “waving a gun” around outside.
The caller in the park adjacent to Cudell Recreation Center saw Tamir playing with an airsoft gun, which shoots plastic pellets. He had told the dispatcher the person may be a child and the gun may be a toy, but the dispatcher never communicated that information to the officers who arrived on the scene.
Surveillance video that was released days after the shooting showed Tamir near a picnic table in the area, pointing and waving said gun. The gun resembled a real firearm because its tell-tale orange tip had been removed.
Within seconds of their patrol car skidding to a stop next to Tamir, Loehmann jumped out and fired two shots. One hit and killed Tamir. Surveillance video shows Tamir appeared to reach for his waistband just before Loehmann opened fire. Tamir was behind the police cruiser when the shooting occurred.
Neither Garmback nor Loehmann rendered first aid.
Tamir received first aid approximately four minutes after he was shot after another Cleveland police officer and an FBI agent arrived at the scene. Three minutes after that, EMS arrived. Tamir died at the hospital the following day.
His death was ruled a homicide in December 2014, as the cause of death was the result of a gunshot wound to his torso with injuries to a major vessel, intestines and pelvis.
Charges denied
Following the shooting, Cleveland police found that Loehmann and Garmback did not violate any rules or policies of the Cleveland Division of Police related to the shooting itself. In December 2015, a grand jury declined to file charges against the two officers. Then, in 2020, the Justice Department declined to file federal criminal charges against them.
The City of Cleveland paid $6 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Rice's family.
"At the end of the day, a 12-year-old child lost their life, and that should not have happened in the City of Cleveland," said former Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson at a press conference in 2016. "It should not have happened.”
Two and a half years after killing Tamir, Loehmann was fired from his position with the Cleveland Division of Police. However, it was not related to Tamir's death, but for lying on his application and violating other administrative policies.
In January 2017, the City of Cleveland filed charges against Loehmann for failing to provide truthful information on his employment application regarding disciplinary actions, information surrounding his departure from a previous police department and failing a test in May 2013.
Cleveland police had previously confirmed to News 5 that upon hiring Loehmann, they did not review his personnel file with Independence police.
“The file revealed he was in the process of being fired for his lack of ‘maturity’ and an incident involving an emotional meltdown during firearm training when he resigned in December 2012.”
Additionally, charges were filed against Garmback for failing to employ proper tactics when he operated the patrol car the day Tamir was shot. He was also charged with failing to report his arrival time to radio dispatchers immediately upon his arrival at the recreation center.
Garmback faced a 10-day suspension in 2018, which was reduced to five days. Two other Cleveland police employees were also suspended in 2017.
Loehmann went to work with the police department in Bellaire, Ohio, as a part-time officer in 2018; however, he withdrew his application after public outcry.
In 2019, The Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association filed an appeal to overturn the firing of Loehmann. The 8th District Court of Appeals dismissed his rehire appeal in 2021. He appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2021 as well, and it refused to consider the appeal.
After failing to be rehired by Cleveland police, Loehmann was hired as the sole officer of Tioga, a small borough in Pennsylvania, in 2021; however, he withdrew his application shortly after being sworn in.
Then, in 2024, Loehmann was hired at a police department in West Virginia but quickly resigned due to the backlash he received.
A decade of honoring Tamir
Since Tamir’s death in 2014, communities nationwide have paid tribute to the 12-year-old.
But the biggest support has come from Samaria.
Located on St. Clair Avenue in Cleveland is the Tamir Rice Afrocentric Cultural Center, which opened five years after Tamir’s death. Samaria started the Tamir Rice Foundation and the center to help advocate for youth. Click here to read more about Samaria’s efforts.
"Where I put all of my nurturing that I had for Tamir, I put it all in there," she said back in 2019.
In 2020, Samaria wrote the foreword to Andratesha Fritzgerald’s book “Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning." In it, Samaria highlights how teachers can change instructional methods to improve outcomes for students of color. Fritzgerald signed copies of her book in Cleveland, and thanks to the community and the book’s publisher, the Tamir Rice Foundation received a $4,000 donation.
In 2021, Tamir's family asked the Justice Department to reopen the case into his death after it was closed and charges were not brought against the officers. However, according to an article from the Associated Press in 2022, the Justice Department said it would not reopen the case.
Several weeks after what would have been Tamir’s 20th birthday, a group gathered at Cudell Park to dedicate a memorial to him. The Rice family and supporters unveiled a marble and stone memorial etched with Tamir’s face and surrounded by a butterfly garden in 2022.
“This is the last memory that I have of my son - playing in the park as children should be able to play in parks in America,” Samaria said in 2022.
