Police wrestled a 14-year-old girl to the ground and handcuffed her as she rushed to aid her younger brother after police shot him in a Cleveland park, according to newly released video from the incident.
Officers shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice on Nov. 22 as he sat outside Cudell Recreation Center, where 911 callers reported someone with a gun.
The sixth-grader had been playing with a pellet gun before officers pulled up in a police cruiser and shot him seconds later.
The family’s attorney described the full-length video “shocking and outrageous,” reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
"This has to be the cruelest thing I've ever seen," said attorney Walter Madison.
City officials finally released the 30-minute video Thursday, and it backs claims made by the children’s mother that officers stopped her daughter from aiding her brother – and that police failed to render first aid for several minutes.
The video shows rookie Officer Timothy Loehmann help his partner, Officer Frank Garmback, restrain the teenage girl and place her in the back of a police cruiser about 10 feet away from her brother as he lay dying on the ground.
Police stood around the wounded boy, including one who stood with hands on hips as an FBI agent arrived and administered first aid four minutes after officers shot the child.
Paramedics arrived eight minutes after the boy was shot, and he was taken away on a stretcher 13 minutes after the shooting.
Tamir later died at a hospital.
The family’s attorney said officers showed “overwhelming indifference” to the child they had shot.
"This is the level of service that makes people very upset and distrustful of law enforcement,” Madison said.
The attorney said the video raises additional questions about Loehmann, who was hired by Cleveland police despite his firing by another department in 2012 and was turned down for a job by several other police agencies.
"This video really explains why," Madison said. "This is not the professional standard we would expect or deserve, and the city of Cleveland put him in the position to allow this to happen."
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has turned the investigation over to the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department, which will then hand over its evidence to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty's office.
Prosecutors will then present the case to a grand jury, which will determine whether any charges will be filed.
Watch video posted online by the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
