CLEVELAND, Ohio – Surveillance video released this week showing a 14-year-old girl being forced to the ground, handcuffed and put in a cruiser near where her 12-year-old brother had just been shot by a police officer while carrying a pellet gun.
Meanwhile, the Cuyahoga County sheriff’s department has asked the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for help in its investigation of the incident.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson recently asked the sheriff instead of BCI to complete the investigation because he didn’t trust BCI to conduct an impartial probe.
Jackson has repeatedly said he disagrees with Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s comment last year that the department suffered a systemic failure after 13 police officers fired 137 rounds into a car and killed two unarmed people.
BCI investigated that shooting. Six officers have been indicted and await trial.
The sheriff’s department has asked BCI for crime scene technical support and firearms testing in the investigation of the shooting of Tamir Rice on Nov. 22.
Video clips initially released by the city showed Rice being fatally wounded by an officer within two seconds of a patrol car stopping nearby. Police say the pellet gun looked real.
The Northeast Ohio Media Group reports it obtained the longer video Wednesday showing Tamir’s sister running toward him after she heard gunfire.
An attorney for the family calls the video “shocking and outrageous.”
A prosecutor says the case will be presented to a grand jury.