There's a question of whether Tamir Rice was to blame, and a question of whether the police can be blamed.
The guy was a kid. You can expect him to be stupid and irresponsible. Unlike the case of Michael Brown, who richly deserved what he got for assaulting a cop and trying to murder him, Rice did not deserve to die.
At the same time, the police officers could not reasonably have done otherwise. I guess it was negligent of the dispatcher to not inform them that the witness thought the gun was fake, but the only thing that is certain there is that this omission had absolutely nothing to do with race.
Have you seen the photograph of the toy gun? It is 100% indistinguishable from a real gun. Cops are not paid to be threatened and potentially shot by a man-sized child waving around a gun.
I didn't say the cops were to blame. I'm actually quite sick of the "muh Tamir was 12" narrative. It has no bearing at all on whether they had the right to shoot him.
However, I don't expect a 12-year-old to be able to maturely think through the consequences of walking around with a real-looking gun either.
Tamir Rice was a "child" shot dead by the cops for pointing a toy gun.
Except he was 5'7" 180lbs and his "toy gun" was indistinguishable from a real one. Probably because he had removed the orange tip.
There's a question of whether Tamir Rice was to blame, and a question of whether the police can be blamed.
The guy was a kid. You can expect him to be stupid and irresponsible. Unlike the case of Michael Brown, who richly deserved what he got for assaulting a cop and trying to murder him, Rice did not deserve to die.
At the same time, the police officers could not reasonably have done otherwise. I guess it was negligent of the dispatcher to not inform them that the witness thought the gun was fake, but the only thing that is certain there is that this omission had absolutely nothing to do with race.
Have you seen the photograph of the toy gun? It is 100% indistinguishable from a real gun. Cops are not paid to be threatened and potentially shot by a man-sized child waving around a gun.
I didn't say the cops were to blame. I'm actually quite sick of the "muh Tamir was 12" narrative. It has no bearing at all on whether they had the right to shoot him.
However, I don't expect a 12-year-old to be able to maturely think through the consequences of walking around with a real-looking gun either.