Thirteen months after Tamir Rice was shot and killed, the 12-year-old's family believes the officers involved in his death won't be indicted on any charges.
"There cannot be an indictment when the prosecutor has thoroughly tainted the process," said Subodh Chandra, Rice family attorney.
And the battle between the Rice family and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office is nothing new. An article on the front page of The New York Times Wednesday has the headline, "Cleveland boy's family clashes with prosecutor in police killing."
The grand jury, which is a private process, has been meeting for months now, hearing testimony from witnesses in the case. During that time, Prosecutor Timothy McGinty has also released several reports that were presented as evidence.
McGinty's office declined an interview with newsnet5.com, but did speak with The New York Times. In the article, McGinty said, "he handles all police killings the same way: impaneling grand juries and publicly releasing evidence in the hope that transparency will quell any suspicion of favoritism."
McGinty also released a letter last week citing his push for transparency.
Case Western Reserve University Law Professor Michael Benza notes that police-involved shooting cases, by nature, are not typical because "there's already inherent tension."
As such, those cases are treated differently.
"If this was not an officer-involved case in Cuyahoga County, this probably already would have been indicted, tried, the convictions returned and the sentence imposed," Benza said. "But it's not a normal case. But even for an officer-involved shooting case, this case is taking a long time."
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