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Tamir Rice

Source: JORDAN GONZALEZ/AFP / Getty Images

CLEVELAND — The family of Tamir Rice is asking the Department of Justice to intervene in the investigation into the police-involved shooting death of the 12-year-old boy.

According to attorneys for the Rice, they formally requested Tuesday that the federal government intervene to investigate both the boy’s death and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty’s handling of the case.

“For months, the Rice family and their representatives have expressed growing concern about unfairness and bias in the grand-jury process. Evidence of that bias and unfairness became so extreme that the family in October 2015 called for recusal of Mr. McGinty and appointment of an independent prosecutor,” said attorneys for the family.

“Last week, on December 7, 2015, the prosecutor’s misconduct intensified even further. Because it was apparent that the presentation to the grand jury was so unfair, the family was forced to retain its own experts in an attempt to have the grand jury consider accurate information on what actually happened the day Tamir Rice was killed. Although local prosecutors promised they would present those experts to the grand jury in a fair manner, in a remarkable turn of events, they sabotaged testimony of the family’s experts through a series of highly unprofessional and inappropriate tactics before the grand jury.”

According to the attorneys, the family’s two experts, Jeff Noble and Roger Clark, nationally recognized figures in the fields of law enforcement and excessive-force policy, left the grand jury last week stating that in their many decades of experience in state and federal courts across the country, they had never encountered such unfair, biased, unprofessional, and hostile treatment by a prosecutor’s office.

“This latest act of prosecutorial misconduct provides further evidence that the grand-jury process has been irreparably harmed in this very important case. It is clear local prosecutors are doing everything in their power to exonerate the officers, no matter what the evidence shows. They are not engaged in the transparent, fair, and thorough investigation of the truth that they promised Tamir Rice’s family, the citizens of Cleveland, and the nation, ensuring that the officers will never face justice,” attorneys say.

 

READ MORE: Fox8.com

Article Courtesy of WJW Fox 8 News Cleveland

Picture Courtesy of Getty Images

Tamir Rice’s Family Asking for Assistance from the DOJ in Case  was originally published on wzakcleveland.com