Ex-cop who killed Tamir Rice appeals to Ohio Supreme Court

CLEVELAND — The white Cleveland police officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black child playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in November 2014, has filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court to get his job back.

Attorneys for Timothy Loehmann filed the appeal last week. A state appellate court earlier year this dismissed an appeal citing a police union’s failure to serve notice on outside attorneys hired by the city.

A police union is seeking to have the Supreme Court overturn that ruling.

Cleveland fired Loehmann in 2017 not for killing Tamir but for providing false information on his job application. An arbitrator and a county judge upheld his dismissal.

Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association President Jeff Follmer said on Monday that he wished the 8th District Court of Appeals had decided the case on the merits of whether Loehmann’s firing and not on a technicality.

Loehmann, a rookie, shot Tamir within seconds of a cruiser skidding to a stop near a gazebo where he had been sitting. Officers responded to a call from a man who said someone was waving a gun around. The man also told a dispatcher the gun could be a fake and the person might be a juvenile.