Tamir Rice shooting: Mother says officers need to 'get some proper training'

The mother of Tamir Rice, the mother of the 12-year-old boy who was fatally shot by a police officer, has said that he was never given the chance to respond to the policeman's orders before he was killed.

Police responded to a 911 call in November about someone possibly carrying a gun. When Officer Timothy Loehmann arrived at the scene to find Tamir Rice with what looked like a gun, police say the young boy did not respond to commands to raise his hands and he was fatally shot.

Police later determined that the gun Tamir was holding was an airsoft gun, which are sold with orange safety indicators at the end of the barrel, but police said Tamir's toy did not have one. His mother claims that Tamir was handed the gun by a girl in the playground on that day.

Samaria Rice said in an interview with The Associated Press that her son was shot before he could respond to orders and that the officer in question should be charged with murder. She called on authorities to make sure officers "get some proper training".

"I'm hoping to, of course, change some of the gun laws," she told the AP. "But also let's start with the police across the nation. Let's get some proper training so nobody else has to go through this."

Speaking about the day when Tamir was shot, Rice said, "I was just a little bit in disbelief, like no, not my son. And when I arrived on the scene, I see my son laying there and my 16-year-old against the police car, they're surrounding him, and my 14-year-old in the back of the police car.

"I'm trying to go towards my son, and, you know, I'm trying to get to him. And they're pushing me back telling me to 'chill out' or they're going put me in the back of the police car."

The fatal encounter was caught on surveillance video.

The grainy, stuttering footage shows the child in a park in Cleveland before police arrive. At one point, he holds the pistol — which fired small plastic pellets — in two hands and points it at something out of the camera’s view.

A police car is shown arriving and the 12-year-old boy, standing in a bandstand-style structure, is shot within seconds of the officers’ arrival.

Cleveland Police said the gun looked like a real firearm and that officers ordered Tamir to show his hands three times before he was shot on Saturday. He died in hospital the following day.

An internal Cleveland police investigation is underway and the results will be turned over to the local prosecutor, who will present them to a grand jury.

Asked whether she expected to see the officer punished, Samaria said, "I will have it. I will. I got a God in my understanding telling me it's going to be alright. I will have justice."