The body of a 12-year-old boy shot dead by police at a Cleveland playground six months ago has been cremated.
Family attorney Walter Madison says Tamir Rice's mother made the decision last week.
Tamir had an airsoft gun that shoots nonlethal plastic pellets when a rookie officer fatally shot him Nov. 22.
A police union official says the officer had no way of knowing Tamir wasn't carrying a real firearm.
Madison has sued the city. He says in a legal case Tamir's cause of death would be an issue and there was concern there may need to be independent examination of his body.
But Madison says grief-stricken mother Samaria Rice "had to put him to rest in order to begin to move on."
A sheriff has said the investigation into Tamir's shooting is nearly complete.
Madison released this statement to newsnet5.com Thursday:
It’s important for everyone to understand Samaria Rice is a mother first. Maternally speaking, her obligation in life or death is to protect and care for her son.
Last week, she made the grief stricken decision to finally rest Tamir. She was torn in making that decision, she was torn between her maternal instinct and the legal morass.
Ultimately she was a mother.
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