In my opinion, the greatest breach of trust in this entire story is not the officer's shooting, but the system's response to it. For anyone who is unfamiliar with how the Grand Jury system works, let me explain:
A Grand Jury decides whether or not to indict someone for a crime and move on to the full jury trial with the prosecution vs. defense setup. The Grand Jury is supposed to be just a tool of the prosecution. The Grand Jury gets to see the prosecutor's evidence, look it over, and then make their determination of whether or not the defendant should go on to trial -- it's a method of preventing the court system's time from being wasted.
But in this case, the Prosecutor (Timothy McGinty) not only failed to do his job, he worked to actively sabotage the Grand Jury process. Remember, in this trial, the officer is the defendant and is being prosecuted by the state. However, rather than putting prosecutorial evidence before the Grand Jury like he was supposed to do, McGinty instead brought forth evidence
against his own side to the Grand Jury. He hired and brought in numerous "experts" to give testimony in support of the defense, allowed the defendant to give statements on his own behalf, vigorously cross-examined the other witnesses who actually agreed with his side, etc.
It was a straight up betrayal of the Grand Jury process and his job as County Prosecutor.
Quote from Cleveland.com:
The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office released three reports from national experts in police use of force that each found the boy's shooting was tragic but reasonable because the officers did not know Tamir's age or that the gun was fake. The experts also concluded that a reasonable officer responding to a report of a man with a gun would have considered Tamir's movements around his waist to pose a "threat" to their safety. They also concluded the use of deadly force would be legally appropriate.
The reports drew ire from lawyers representing Tamir's mother, Samaria Rice, in a wrongful death lawsuit against the officers and the city. The lawyers accused the experts of being too deferential to law enforcement. The attorneys eventually released reports from three of their own experts, two policing experts and a bio-kinetics expert, who concluded that the shooting was unreasonable and that Tamir's hands were actually in his jacket pockets when Loehmann fired.
The lawyers, community activists and a group of rabbis and pastors had called for months for McGinty to allow a special prosecutor to take over the investigation. They accused McGinty of harboring a bias in favor of law enforcement because his office works with police officers to build cases, and seeking expert reports that would exonerate the officers.
EDIT: More info from the letter sent to the District Attorney:
Last week, after taking the unusual step of asking the crime victimâs family to gather evidence to present to the grand jury (when that should be the prosecutorâs job), the prosecutors put the expert witnesses located by Tamirâs family on the stand. But, instead of allowing them to explain their findings to the grand jury, the prosecutors immediately launched into an improper cross-examination that included smirking and mocking the experts, pointing a toy gun in an expertâs face, and suggesting that the experts were not sufficiently concerned with preserving the police officersâ âliberty interest.â This treatment of the expert witnesses who Tamirâs family had to find after the prosecutor refused to do so made it clear that these prosecutors are not engaged in a search for truth or justice, but rather are conducting a charade process aimed at exonerating the officers.
EDIT #2: Said letter in its entirety:
http://www.ecbalaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Rice-Letter.pdf
It's written by Tamir Rice's family, but given that the prosecutor is arguing the defense, this letter is the only voice we have arguing the prosecution.
EDIT #3:
/u/soliddraft123 pointed out that usually the prosecutor himself opens up the grand jury investigation. So why did McGinty open the investigation only to stomp all over it? Here's what happened in Ohio:
As of six and a half months after the shooting, the Prosecutor's office had yet to 'decide' whether or not to take the case before a Grand Jury. The investigation had dragged on for months, with very few witnesses actually being interviewed or evidence being gathered. However, there is an interesting twist in Ohio law that allows citizens to petition a judge to have a case brought before a Grand Jury, which is exactly what happened.
Quoting Wikipedia:
In response to a petition from citizens, on June 11 Municipal Court Judge Ronald Adrine agreed that "Officer Timothy Loehmann should be charged with several crimes, the most serious of them being murder but also including involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, negligent homicide and dereliction of duty." Judge Adrine also found probable cause to charge Officer Frank Garmback with "negligent homicide and dereliction of duty." His opinion was forwarded to city prosecutors and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty, who as of that date had not yet come to a decision on whether to present the evidence to a grand jury.
In other words, McGinty was forced into taking into the Grand Jury a case he had been doing his best to put aside. So, instead, he simply sabotaged it.
Thanks for your responses and replies, everyone. And thanks for the gold. NorthBus out.
I ain't even know that, they be out there for real. 