By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
“What he expects us to do, because we’re police officers, is just ignore the Constitution,” Loomis said Sunday. He added: “We have rights like every other American citizen out there. We have rights just like the bad guys that we’re interviewing.”
The angry words come despite the release of reports by McGinty that one legal expert said appear to lay the groundwork for a grand jury to not indict any officers in the death of Tamir, who was shot and killed last year outside a recreation center while holding a pellet gun.
“He can come in and hold a press conference, and say, ‘I’ve given the grand jury everything, the grand jury declined to indict, the case is now closed,’” Case Western University law professor Michael Benza said Sunday.
McGinty’s office recently released the reports from two outside experts into the Nov. 22 shooting of Tamir by rookie Patrolman Timothy Loehmann.
A retired FBI agent and a Denver prosecutor both found that Loehmann, who shot Tamir moments after the cruiser driven by his partner pulled up beside the boy, exercised a reasonable use of force.
They concluded that Loehmann had reason to perceive Tamir — described in a 911 call as man waving and pointing a gun — as a serious threat.
The expert reports came just a few months after another white officer was acquitted in the deaths of two black motorists.
In May, a judge acquitted Michael Brelo on voluntary manslaughter charges in the November 2012 shooting of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams after Russell’s beat-up car backfired
outside police headquarters, prompting a high-speed chase with officers who mistook the sound for gunfire. Brelo was accused of firing the final 15 shots of a 137-shot barrage while standing on the hood of Russell’s car.
McGinty pushed hard for Brelo’s prosecution, though many legal experts thought involuntary manslaughter charges would have been easier to prove.
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