In his first public account of the shooting, Timothy Loehmann told grand jurors he thought he was facing an ‘active shooter situation’ 
 
 The officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Ohio has delivered his first public account of the killing, over a year after the incident occurred, arguing his actions were justified as he was engaged in an “active shooter situation” and believed Tamir was 18 years old. 
 
 
 
 Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann told grand jurors he shot because Tamir pulled a gun – which turned out to be a pellet gun – from his waistband. “The suspect had a gun, had been threatening others with the weapon and had not obeyed our command to show us his hands,” he said. 
 
 Tamir Rice family lawyers call reports into fatal shooting 'preposterous' Read more 
 
 Loehmann fatally shot Tamir, who was black, within two seconds of arriving at a local park on 22 November last year, after a 911 caller reported that there was a juvenile in the area with a weapon that was “probably fake”. The full details of the call were not passed on to the officers, according to other accounts released by the Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty. 
 
 A Cuyahoga County grand jury is currently considering whether to bring charges against Loehmann, 27, and his partner, 47-year-old Frank Garmback, both of whom are white. Garmback was the driver of the patrol car on the day of the shooting. 
 
 The officers, who had previously declined to be interviewed by county investigators, provided written testimony that was released by prosecutors after being read to grand jurors on Tuesday. 
 
 Loehmann said he told Tamir to raise his hands repeatedly as the boy was “reaching into his waistband” before the officer opened fire and had exited his patrol cruiser because he had been trained that “the cruiser is a coffin”. 
 
 “I observed the suspect pulling the gun out of waistband and his elbow coming up,” Loehmann wrote in his submission, dated 30 November 2015. 
 
 He continued: “With his hands pulling the gun out and his elbow coming up, I knew it was a gun and it was coming out … the threat to my partner and myself was real and active.” 
 
 Lawyers for the Rice family have repeatedly dismissed claims that Loehmann and Garmback could have given the 12-year-old sufficient warnings or commands, given the fraction of time that passed between the officers arriving on the scene and opening fire. 
 
 On Tuesday, Rice family lawyers described the prosecutor’s decision to allow the officer’s unsworn statements before the grand jury as “a stunning irregularity”. 
 
 
 
 “No regular target of a criminal investigation would be afforded this opportunity,” the group said in a statement. 
 
 In Garmback’s statement, he concedes that the patrol car had slid along the ground and “did not stop where and when I intended”. 
 
 The steady release of evidence presented to the grand jury, including three expert testimonies that concluded the shooting was justified, has been staunchly criticised by Tamir’s parents and protesters in Cleveland, who argue that the drip feed of information is designed to prepare the public for a non-indictment. 
 
 Rice family lawyers have requested the grand jury also hear testimony from two experts who concluded the shooting was not justified. 
 
 Asked for a statement on the officers’ behalf, their attorney, Henry Hiler, said in an email on Tuesday: “We respect the grand jury process and have faith in our judicial system.” 
 
 The officers’ statements were read to the jurors a day after Tamir’s mother, Samaria, testified to the panel about the loss of her son. In a statement, her attorney said she had asked the jurors whether the officers’ actions “could possibly be ‘reasonable’ or ‘justifiable’”. 
 
 “She believes that the answer is plainly no,” the statement said, “and hopes and prays that the grand jury agrees that there is probable cause to indict the officers and hold them accountable for her son’s death.” ||||| A white Cleveland patrolman who shot a 12-year-old black boy carrying a pellet gun told investigators that he and his partner continuously yelled "show me your hands" before he fired the fatal shots, according to the officer's statement released by prosecutors Tuesday. 
 
 The rookie officer said that Tamir Rice didn't obey his commands and that he saw the boy pulling a weapon out of his waist band. 
 
 "I knew it was a gun and I knew it was coming out," officer Timothy Loehmann said in the statement given to investigators. 
 
 It turned out Tamir was carrying a nonlethal, Airsoft-type gun that shoots plastic pellets when Loehmann shot him twice outside a recreation center on Nov. 22, 2014. He died a day later. 
 
 A grand jury will decide if Loehmann or his field training officer should be charged criminally for Tamir's death. 
 
 Prosecutors in recent weeks released a frame-by-frame analysis of the surveillance camera footage from the shooting, along with expert reports that called the shooting justified. 
 
 Attorneys for the Rice family have asked Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty to step aside and allow a special prosecutor to take over the case. They called the prosecutor's presentation to the grand jury "biased" and "improper" after releasing the reports that found no fault with the officers' actions. 
 
 They said Tuesday that allowing both officers to make unsworn statements that won't be subject to cross examination "further taints these proceedings." 
 
 The statements from Loehmann and patrolman Frank Garmback describe in detail action that the surveillance video shows took about two seconds. 
 
 They were responding after a 911 caller reported that a man was waving a gun and pointing it at people. The caller told the dispatcher that the gun might not be real. The call also said the man might be a juvenile, but that information wasn't passed on to the officers. 
 
 Loehmann said he and his partner thought Tamir was going to run as they drove up to him, but Tamir turned toward the cruiser. 
 
 "The suspect lifted his shirt, reached down into his waistband. We continued to yell 'show me your hands,'" Loehmann said in the statement. "I was focused on the suspect. Even when he was reaching into his waistband, I didn't fire. I still was yelling the command 'show me your hands.'" 
 
 The rookie officer said he was getting out of the cruiser when he saw a weapon in the boy's hand coming out his waistband. "The threat to my partner and myself was real and active," Loehmann said. 
 
 He said he fired two shots and heard his partner still yelling "show me your hands" after Tamir fell to the ground. 
 
 Garmback, who was driving the cruiser, said in his statement that he wanted to keep the boy away from the recreation center and that the patrol car slid when he hit the brakes. The car didn't stop where he intended, Garmback said. 
 
 He said he saw the gun Tamir was carrying when Loehmann opened his door. "I thought the gun was real," Garmback said. 
 
 Subodh Chandra, an attorney for Tamir's family, said Tuesday that the officers' statements were contradictory and did not make sense. 
 
 "Loehmann, for example, insists that he observed things and took action that would have been physically impossible for any human being to do in the under two seconds it took him to shoot a 12-year-old child," he said in a statement. 
 
 Chandra also noted that Loehmann said he issued at least three commands to "show me your hands," but that Garmback said he thought the cruiser's windows were rolled up as they drove toward Tamir. 
 
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 This story has been corrected to drop reference to officer's account of the estimated two-second encounter because the officer did not specifically say which moments he was describing. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report. ||||| Surveillance video shows the police car pull up very close to Tamir and Loehmann getting out of the vehicle and firing within seconds. Garmback said the car, which he estimated to be going between 10 to 12 mph, slid. "The car did not stop where and when I intended," he said. 
 
 The officers both said that Garmback told Loehmann he thought Tamir was going to run, and were afraid he was going to enter the recreation center. 
 
 Loehmann said in his statement that as the car slid, "I started to open the door and yelled continuously, 'show me your hands' as loud as I could." 
 
 Garmback said in his statement he believes the windows were up, but isn’t sure. 
 
 Garmback said he saw the gun at around the time that Loehmann got out of the police car, and he thought it was a handgun. Garmback said he and Loehmann told Tamir to show his hands. 
 
 "Even when he was reaching into his waistband, I didn't fire. I still was yelling the command 'show me your hands,'" Loehmann said in his statement. Loehmann said he fired twice. "I shot towards the gun in his hands," he said. 
 
 Related: Officer Who Killed Tamir Rice Found Unfit in Previous Police Job 
 
 A grand jury will determine whether criminal charges should be brought against Loehmann. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said he released the statements "in keeping with our determination to be as transparent as possible in this and other police use of fatal deadly force cases." ||||| CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Both Cleveland police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Tamir Rice said in statements released Tuesday that the 12-year-old boy was pulling what they thought was a real gun out of his waistband when one officer opened fire. 
 
 The officers also stated why they approached Tamir by driving their cruiser over a curb and across the lawn of a West Side recreation center, an approach that some criminal justice experts have criticized as reckless. 
 
 Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty made public the two statements, each two typewritten pages, citing an interest in transparency as he presents evidence in the case to a grand jury. 
 
 The statements from Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback mark the first time the public has formally heard the officers' side of the shooting that made Tamir's name a national rallying cry for protesters of police use of deadly force across the country. 
 
 Loehmann and Garmback were investigating a 911 report of a "guy with a gun" outside the Cudell Recreation Center about 3:30 p.m. Nov. 22, 2014. At the time, Tamir had an airsoft pellet gun. 
 
 Garmback drove his cruiser over the curb, and skidded to a stop beside a gazebo in the park next to the recreation center. As Tamir walked toward the cruiser, Loehmann jumped from the passenger seat and shot Tamir within seconds. 
 
 Both officers wrote in their statements that they thought Tamir, who according to an autopsy report was 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighed 195 pounds, was an adult. 
 
 Garmback stated that he drove up to the park from West 99th Street to get a clear view of the swings where the 911 caller said the suspect was standing. 
 
 He also said that barriers at the park's main entrance prevent cars from getting into the park. Garmback said that he drove over the curb and across the grass because he did not see Tamir at the swings. 
 
 Loehmann wrote that he opened the door and yelled "show me your hands" as the cruiser approached Tamir. He repeated the order as Tamir reached into his pants, he said. 
 
 "I saw the weapon in his hands coming out of his waistband and the threat to my partner and myself was real and active," he wrote. 
 
 The statements, dated Monday, were given to the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Deputy assigned to the investigation, Loehmann's attorney Henry Hilow said. 
 
 Loehmann gave the statement "against legal advice" because he is the target of a criminal investigation and has the right not to give a statement, Hilow said. But Loehmann gave the statement "in the interest of the investigators having the facts," Hilow said. 
 
 Subodh Chandra, the attorney who is representing the Rice family in a wrongful death lawsuit against the officers and the city, released a statement accusing McGinty of allowing the officers to submit "unsworn statements" instead of testifying before the grand jury. 
 
 "Submitting self-serving, unsworn written statements -- rather than appearing live before the grand jury so that the officers' versions of events are subject to vigorous cross examination -- shows that these officers know their story will not withstand real scrutiny," Chandra wrote. 
 
 Chandra said that the shooting happened too quickly for Loehmann and Garmback to observe and react to the movements they said Tamir made. 
 
 McGinty's spokesman Joe Frolik rebutted Chandra's comments. 
 
 "These plaintiff's lawyers have no idea what went on behind the closed doors of the grand jury," Frolik said. "No witnesses, including these police officers, were permitted to give unsworn statements to the grand jury." 
 
 Neither officer gave a statement to internal investigators in the days after the shooting. They also did not give a statement in January, when sheriff's deputies took over the investigation. 
 
 The only statements included in the sheriff's investigation before this week were those Loehmann made to other officers at the scene. 
 
 McGinty criticized the union over the officers' refusals to make statements in June, when he made public the evidence gathered by the sheriff's department. McGinty accused the union of operating on a "double standard" by asking witnesses of crimes to come forward with information, but then instructing its officers not to cooperate with investigations into police shootings. 
 
 Union president Steve Loomis defended the decision by saying McGinty refused to grant the officers legal protection for their statements, and they were exercising their constitutional rights not to provide a statement. 
 
 The statements come as McGinty's office is presenting evidence to a grand jury, which will decide whether to charge Loehmann and Garmback with a crime. 
 
 What experts said about key issues in Tamir Rice case 
 
 McGinty and attorneys for Tamir's family have released a combined five reports by criminal justice experts who reviewed the case. 
 
 Three current and former law enforcement officials hired by McGinty found the shooting was "objectively reasonable" under the totality of the circumstances. They wrote that surveillance video of the shooting appeared to show Tamir's hands moving toward his waistband as Loehmann got out of the car, which would have given the officer reason to believe Tamir was reaching for a gun. 
 
 But the reports that Rice's family attorneys released on Saturday criticized the officers' tactical response, saying their "reckless" approach to Tamir made them vulnerable to a threat, and that the video was too grainy to see if Tamir had reached for his waist. 
 
 The experts the Rice family commissioned, also former law enforcement officers, wrote that it was improper for McGinty's experts to guess what the officers perceived. Because Loehmann and Garmback had not given formal statements about the shooting at the time, the experts did not know what the officers saw, the experts wrote. 
 
 Tamir's mother, Samaria Rice, her lawyers and some activists have been critical of McGinty's handling of the investigation, and have called for him to turn the investigation over to a special prosecutor. 
 
 McGinty has repeatedly said he will not step down. 
 
 Update: This post was updated with a comment from Joe Frolik, spokesman for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty.
– The two Cleveland police officers involved in the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice are telling their side of the story for the first time. In two statements, officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback say they were investigating a report of a "guy with a gun" in a park outside a recreation center on Nov. 22, 2014, when they saw Tamir pulling what they believed to be a real gun from his waistband, per Cleveland.com. Garmback, 47, says he drove over a curb and across a lawn because the park's main entrance blocked cars from entering. Loehmann, 27, says he yelled "show me your hands" three times, then opened fire on Tamir—who the officers believed was an adult, per the AP. "Even when he was reaching into his waistband, I didn't fire,'" Loehmann says, per NBC News. Then "I saw the weapon in his hands coming out of his waistband and the threat to my partner and myself was real and active." Loehmann's lawyer says his statement was given "against legal advice" since the officer is the target of a criminal investigation and evidence is now being presented to a Cuyahoga County grand jury. She adds, however, it was "in the interest of the investigators having the facts." The statements were read to grand jurors on Tuesday, per the Guardian. Lawyers for the Rice family accuse the local prosecutor of allowing the officers to give "unsworn statements" so as to avoid the "vigorous cross examination" that comes with testifying before the grand jury. "No regular target of a criminal investigation would be afforded this opportunity," they say. They add Loehmann "is suggesting that he observed things and took action that would have been physically impossible for any human being to do in the less than two seconds it took him to shoot this 12-year-old boy." (Read Loehmann's comments from the scene.)