The 911 operator who took the call that eventually led to the fatal shooting of Tamir Rice has been suspended for eight days.
Dispatcher Constance Hollinger violated protocol when she failed to relay important information to police that the 911 caller had shared. The 911 caller, for example, said he thought that the person with gun could be a juvenile and the gun could be fake.
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12-year-old Rice had been playing with a pellet gun in November 2014 when two white officers,Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, pulled up on him outside a Cleveland recreation center.
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Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said that Hollinger made a crucial mistake that affected how both officers responded to the scene. Loehmann shot and killed Tamir less than two seconds after they arrived. Neither officer were ever criminally charged.
Hollinger received news of her eight-day suspension in a disciplinary letter dated March 10 written by Police Chief Calvin Williams.
“Eight days for gross negligence resulting in the death of a 12-year-old boy,” Samaria Rice’s attorney, Subodh Chandra, said in the statement. Samaria Rice is Tamir’s moth. “How pathetic is that?”
The city of Cleveland settled a federal civil right lawsuit last April by paying the Rice family $6 million.