× Community leaders to call on judge to issue arrest warrants in Tamir Rice case 
 
 CLEVELAND– Cleveland community leaders will not wait for prosecutors to decide whether or not murder charges should be filed in the Tamir Rice case. They will go straight to a judge. 
 
 According to a press release, a group of civil rights leaders, activists, and clergy will hold a press conference Tuesday morning to announce they are filing a number of citizens’ affidavits for probable cause in the 12-year-old’s death. The release states that the affidavits will call on a judge to issue arrest warrants for the two officers involved. 
 
 Police shot and killed Tamir Rice last November. They received a call about a male pointing a gun at people outside the Cudell Recreation Center. Investigators found he had an airsoft pistol that looked like a powerful handgun. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Jawanza Colvin, pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, said in the release: 
 
 “We are still waiting for the criminal justice system to enact justice in the name of Tamir Rice. It has been more than six months since his tragic death and, yet, the people still have no answers and no one has been held accountable. Today, citizens are taking matters into their own hands utilizing the tools of democracy as an instrument of justice.” 
 
 In response, Steve Loomis, President of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, released the following statement to the FOX 8 I-Team: 
 
 “Talk about a grandstand of vigilantism. This is yet another attempt to totally disrespect and disregard our justice system. The same ambulance chasing attorneys that demanded a “transparent investigation from an outside agency be completed”, and that the facts of that investigation “be presented to the Grand Jury”, have now changed their minds. These same folks now want to bypass not only the independent investigation they demanded, but the grand jury system as well. While those with agendas continue to disregard evidence, rules of law, and fact, in lieu of the self serving, emotional and fictitious claims, the Ferguson Effect continues to grow. The unfortunate and unintended result we be that those that need us the most will be made to suffer from increasing lawlessness of an emboldened criminal element. The continued attacks on police officers and our justice system will only serve to increase the “Ferguson Effect” among police officers. While these ambulance chasers continue to demand police officers be “held accountable” for their actions they are seemingly never content with that accountability. They also NEVER hold the involved suspects accountable for their actions and continue to ignore the generational and decades old issues that continue to degrade and plague our society. It continues to amaze me that while police involved shootings represent less than 1% of ALL shootings nationwide, they represent nearly 90% of the story line of national, state, and local media coverage. The vast and mostly silent majority of law abiding, God fearing citizens are sick of these attacks on police officers and support the very difficult and absolutely necessary jobs we do.” 
 
 Stay with fox8.com for LIVE coverage of Tuesday’s press conference. 
 
 Continuing coverage of the shooting of Tamir Rice here. ||||| Tamir Rice: judge finds cause for murder charge over police killing of 12-year-old Read more 
 
 An Ohio prosecutor released a comprehensive account of the investigation into the death of Tamir Rice on Saturday, including witness reports that contradict a police officer’s claim that he shouted a warning before shooting and killing the 12-year-old boy last November. 
 
 Tamir was shot as he played in a Cleveland park, after police responded to a 911 call reporting a male with a firearm. He was playing with a toy plastic gun. The death and a delay in its investigation sparked public outrage and protests. 
 
 On Thursday, Cleveland municipal court judge Ronald Adrine said he found probable cause to bring a murder charge against the officer who fired the fatal shot, Timothy Loehmann. Adrine’s ruling, which prosecutors will consider, followed a request to look into the case by a group known as the Cleveland 8, a number of clergymen and local activists who support the Rice family. 
 
 In releasing a redacted 224-page account of the investigation by the Cuyahoga County sheriff’s department on Saturday, prosecutor Timothy McGinty said his intention was to be transparent. 
 
 “Transparency is essential for an intelligent discussion of the important issues raised by this case,” he said. 
 
 “If we wait years for all litigation to be completed before the citizens are allowed to know what actually happened, we will have squandered our best opportunity to institute needed changes in use-of-force policy, police training and leadership.” 
 
 The report made no conclusion as to whether the killing was justified, following a statement issued by McGinty on Thursday that a grand jury would ultimately decide whether criminal charges would be brought. 
 
 “As unbiased collectors of fact, the investigative team has not, and will not, render any opinion of the legality of the officers’ actions,” the report states. 
 
 Loehmann, 26, told investigators that when he arrived at the park and confronted Tamir, he told him several times to put his hands in the air, but the boy instead reached into his waistband and produced what turned out to be a toy gun. 
 
 “He gave me no choice, he reached for the gun and there was nothing I could do,” Loehmann said in his incident report. 
 
 Other officers at the scene reported that they thought the boy was aged about 20 and that they believed the gun was real. 
 
 None of the witnesses whose accounts appear in the report, however, say they heard Loehmann or any other officer shout a warning to Tamir, leaving detectives to conclude that “it is unclear whether Officer Loehmann issued verbal commands”. 
 
 A 31-year-old woman, whose name was redacted from the report, told investigators she heard someone shout “Freeze! Show me your hands”, but only after she heard two gunshots. She said she heard a third shot after the shouting. 
 
 A 15-year-old boy who knew Tamir said he heard two shots close together and a third a short while later. 
 
 Detectives heard from another friend who said he gave the boy the toy gun, which fired small plastic pellets, days before the incident. The friend said he had taken the gun apart and was unable to reattach the highly visible orange cap that would have immediately indicated the gun was not real. 
 
 Meanwhile, an FBI agent who was on duty at a separate incident nearby told how he gave Tamir first aid within four minutes of the shooting. The agent said Loehmann and an officer with him seemed to freeze. 
 
 “They wanted to do something, but they didn’t know what to do,” the agent told investigators. Tamir died in hospital the next day. 
 
 Loehmann declined to be interviewed by the investigators, as did his training partner, Frank Garmback, 47, who was also present at the scene. The grand jury will determine if charges will be brought against him. 
 
 Members of the Rice family similarly decided not to be interviewed. Walter Madison, the family’s attorney, could not be reached on Saturday for comment but issued a statement welcoming the report’s release. 
 
 “I appreciate the recent work of the Cleveland 8 and all others in this city in their tireless efforts to move the wheels of justice,” he said. 
 
 “The Honorable Judge Ronald Adrine swiftly and decisively found probable cause for murder and other homicide offenses. Within 36 hours we now have a public release of the county sheriff’s investigation. Let’s continue this fight for equal justice for all, it is working.” 
 
 Steven Loomis, president of the police union representing Loehmann, said he did not agree with the decision to publish the report. McGinty, however, said it was the right thing to do. 
 
 “The death of a citizen resulting from the use of deadly force by the police is different from all other cases and deserves a high level of public scrutiny,” he said. 
 
 “These cases involve officers [and] public employees whose decision to take a fellow citizen’s life must be evaluated to determine, by law, whether the police officer’s action was reasonable under the circumstances and therefore justifiable.”
– It has been more than six months since a rookie cop shot a 12-year-old boy to death in Cleveland—and community leaders are tired of waiting for prosecutors to act. They plan to use a little-known and little-used Ohio law to go directly to a judge to have the officers involved arrested for the murder of Tamir Rice, the New York Times reports. The leaders plan to bypass police and prosecutors by filing citizens' affidavits today. "Here we are taking some control of the process as citizens," Walter Madison, a lawyer for the Rice family, tells the Times. "We are going to participate without even changing the law," he adds, noting that similar cases that went to grand juries ended up "unfavorable to the families." Community leaders say that there's a conflict of interest in officer-involved shooting cases because cops work closely with prosecutors, the Times notes, but authorities say the Rice case will end up before a grand jury even if there is an arrest. A spokesman for the prosecutor tells Cleveland.com that the grand jury "ultimately makes the charging decision in all fatal use of deadly force cases that involve law enforcement officers." In a statement to Fox 8, the chief of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association called the move an "attempt to totally disrespect and disregard our justice system" and warned such efforts would worsen the "increasing lawlessness of an emboldened criminal element." (Ex-cop Michael Slager was indicted yesterday in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man.)