{"id":182095,"date":"2015-12-19T22:41:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-20T03:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/12\/19\/whiskey-tango-foxtrot-15\/"},"modified":"2015-12-19T22:41:00","modified_gmt":"2015-12-20T03:41:00","slug":"whiskey-tango-foxtrot-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/12\/19\/whiskey-tango-foxtrot-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears that the Cuyahoga County district attorney has been pulling out all the stops in the grand jury proceedings to ensure that the police walk free<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the family of a 12-year-old boy fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer called for a federal investigation into his death because they say the local prosecutor has been biased in favor of law enforcement. <\/span>

<\/span>In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch that was released on Tuesday, the legal team for Tamir Rice’s mother and sister complained about the unusual measures taken by the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office in reviewing the 2014 shooting. <\/span>

<\/span>“We write to request that your office launch an independent investigation into Tamir\u2019s death because the local prosecutor has abdicated his responsibility to conduct a fair and impartial investigation and has severely compromised the grand-jury process,” attorneys for the Rice family wrote. <\/span>

<\/span>Among a variety of complaints, the letter describes a bizarre moment when a prosecutor allegedly shoved a toy gun in the face of a police expert testifying to the grand jury that the shooting of Tamir was unjustified<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>But the letter to Lynch shows that the family’s frustrations have widened under prosecutor Timothy McGinty’s oversight. The family’s lawyers allege that he has manipulated the investigation and grand jury proceedings to benefit the officers.<\/span>

<\/span>This month, McGinty allowed Loehman and Officer Frank Garmback, who drove the squad car to the playground, to read prepared statements to the grand jury, but then allowed them to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid questioning by lawyers.<\/span>

<\/span>An individual cannot selectively use Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination after giving some testimony under oath, the Rice family attorneys said. <\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>The letter also alleges that McGinty’s office, in another unusual move, asked Rice’s family to gather evidence on its own for the grand jury. Experts rounded up by attorneys for Rice’s family were then subjected to perverse questioning by prosecutors last week, the letter alleged.<\/span>

<\/span>In one instance, a prosecutor removed a toy gun from his pants and pointed it in the face of an expert during his testimony, according to the letter. The letter says the surprise use of a prop in court was an exaggerated reference to the threat Loehman allegedly felt when encountering Tamir. <\/span>

<\/span>The expert was Roger Clark, a 27-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s department. He was one of two experts with law enforcement backgrounds who\u2019d been retained by Tamir\u2019s family and wrote reports that concluded the killing was unjustified. HuffPost has been unable to reach Clark for comment.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I would suggest that a criminal,and a state bar, investigation against by the McGinty are justified, because the allegations appear to be credible, and if they are true, there appear to be a lot of lawyers who need to be marched out of their offices in handcuffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that the Cuyahoga County district attorney has been pulling out all the stops in the grand jury proceedings to ensure that the police walk free: Lawyers for the family of a 12-year-old boy fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer called for a federal investigation into his death because they say the local …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1051,972,1041],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-hypocrisy","category-justice","category-law-enforcement-misconduct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}