Tamir Rice family attorneys want own experts to testify

CLEVELAND — Attorneys for the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a black boy who was fatally shot by a white Cleveland police officer last year, have asked a prosecutor to allow their own use-of-force experts to testify before a grand jury.

It came as Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty released an "enhanced video" of the shooting from Nov. 22, 2014.

The request to testify follows the release of reports by prosecutors that concluded the shooting was justified because the officers had no way of knowing that Tamir's pellet gun wasn't a real firearm.

Reports find reasonable force used in Tamir Rice death

The family's experts say bad police tactics led to Tamir's death. A consultant notes that police should have better assessed the situation back on November 22, 2014, according to the Associated Press.

Tamir’s family released reports from two of their hired independent experts Saturday regarding the shooting.

"Unlike the reports solicited by the prosecutor, these independent reports consider all relevant facts, including the recklessness of the officers' behavior in rushing upon Tamir, the immediacy of Officer (Timothy) Loehmann's shots, and the fact that the officers left a 12-year-old boy bleeding and dying on the ground without first aid,” attorney Subodh Chandra said.

“And the new reports, unlike the prosecutor's, don't make up non-existent officer testimony or ignore binding Sixth Circuit federal constitutional law holding that officers can't create the perceived danger they later use to try to justify their conduct," Chandra added.

Prosecutors on Saturday released a frame-by-frame analysis of surveillance camera footage that shows the shooting.

In a statement, McGinty wrote that the sequenced video enhancement shows the timeline of events "immediately before and after the shooting of Tamir Rice."

"The enhancement shows 326 still frames and timeline of events from two different surveillance cameras. It uses metadata from the surveillance video to establish the timeline of events," he said.

McGinty said the enhancement will be presented to the grand jury who will decide if patrolman Timothy Loehmann or his field training officer should be charged criminally for Tamir's death, for evaluation along with other reports.

The video was taken by a security camera at Cudell Recreation Center, where Tamir was shot, and shows more angles. The enhancement doesn't appear to provide any new information.

“Once again … we are not reaching any conclusions from these or other isolated bits of evidence,” McGinty said in a statement. “Individually they are simply pieces of a complex puzzle.”

Contributing: Associated Press