What a complete and total pile of horseshit. That cop exited his still-moving car firing his gun. Only Bruce Willis gets to do that.

Autostart video.

@2, most people would consider that a crime if the object turned out not to be a gun. I submit that most people not shielded by The Blue Wall or white privilege would be convicted of a crime if they shot someone because they merely "appeared" to have a firearm.

@4: Yes, please correct Rich and put it under a "continue reading" fold - otherwise we're going to be annoyed by this all day long or longer until this post slips into the "previous posts" -- whenever we refresh Slog.

the fucking pigs changed their story when they found out it was on camera.. they claimed he was with a group of kids and grabbed the gun as they arrived...pigs lied... tackled his sister - no medical help..tamir didnt die until the next day. pigs need to pay.

@6: Nonwhites and civilians get off for shooting people with fake guns reasonably often. Do you really think it is white people getting held up with fake guns working in corner shops and liquor stores?

I can understand people from a non-diverse, lily-white city like Seattle not understanding this.

Cue the sickening assholes rationalizing and justifying the execution of a child by trigger-happy police.

It's not like community relations with AmeriKKKa's police are already at the lowest points in our lifetimes or anything. Giving them the freedom to murder anyone at will is gonna backfire on them big time.

Wasn't there a great article on the Slog a while back about grand juries and how they're not real juries and are designed just to protect officials? Can a better Slog sleuth than I am find the link?

Meanwhile, White People with toy guns continue to not be shot by police...

@13
I don't know if they differentiate in this type of case, but otherwise, grand juries are made up of people from the community. You can be summed to Grand Jury duty just the same as you can for regular jury duty. A few years ago I was summed and was stuck on grand jury duty for a month. There were about 20 of us in a room each day hearing evidence and testimony. We were asked to decide on whether the case should move forward to trial or not. The jury I was on was pretty diverse racially and economically.

A call comes in from dispatch.
Male suspect in his early 20's
5'7"
195 pounds
Carrying a gun in a park
Waiving weapon at strangers in a shitty part of town.
When told to "Show me your hands" – reaches into his waist-band to grab this:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/12/0…

It's unfortunate. Not injustice.

A call comes in from dispatch.
Male suspect in his early 20's
5'7"
175 pounds
Carrying a gun in a park
Waiving weapon at strangers in a shitty part of town.
When told to "Show me your hands" – reaches into his waist-band to grab this:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/12/0…

It's unfortunate. Not injustice.

@10: Nonwhites and civilians? As opposed to whites and military?

@5 exactly right. The cops are guilty of stupid tactics, which mostly endangered themselves had it been a real gun. I'm sorry, when it someone going to stand up and say though, pulling an object on a cop that looks identical is an F'ing stupid thing to do and any kid should know better. Any parent should know better. I'm with the BLM movement on the cases that are legit. There are plenty of them where blacks have been shot in the back. This case, tragic as it is, isn't a good case to hitch your political wagon to. The cops should be fired for rolling up on a gun suspect like cowboys instead of parking, approaching behind cover and then deal with the suspect. They're bad cops tactically. But the grand jury is absolutely right. I have a hard time believing the kid wouldn't have gotten shot if he were white too, but we'll never know.

@12 NO.

What happened to Tamir is an all too common systemic fear based break down on the part of the police.

Oh and to top it off the entire time Tamir was at the rec center there was an off duty Cleveland cop working as armed security at the center. Apparently his part time job at the rec center didn't require him to look outside, monitor the security cameras, provide first aid, or even leave the building.

Cops and their support staff aren't exactly behaving in a professional manner. Alas our prosecuting attorneys aren't doing their jobs either.

The cops skidded into this situation a'fearing for their lives never slowed down to actually assess the situation. Gross malpractice at the very least. There is a crime here Tim just won't prosecute it. Or even look at it.

Nor will you Ken, apparently.

@23 - The problem with that meager comfort is that, by and large, if there's no crime, there's no consequence. Moreover, when the "dumb thing" in this case is clearly driven by assumptions that have all the hallmarks of institutional racism (the fact that resident peckerwood Zoner even showed up on this thread all but proves it; the white hoods barely exist at all but to come to one another's aid, and I guarantee that the extent of this one's paltry contributions to civilization are not merely summarized, but solely contained within his blog posts), a finding that would actually force cop culture at large to address its race problem would be preferable to one that does not.

So if we grant that not ever stupid thing, nor even every clearly bigoted thing, that an individual does is necessarily a crime, the question is, how do we address that which is not criminal, but still requires a broad social response? Should there not, at least, be a code of ethics that binds police that is greater than that which binds citizens? Doctors are held to higher standards than baristas because of the nature of the job; if the job involves making decisions from a place of authority and with force of arms and power of detainment, should not an ethical code that exceeds the necessarily broad, blunt boundaries of law be employed?