Tamir Rice’s family is looking to the Biden administration for justice.
You might remember Tamir Rice as the 14-year-old Black boy who was gunned down by Cleveland police in 2014.
Buzzfeed News reports that Rice’s family is working alongside community organizers to campaign for the Biden administration to reopen the federal investigation into his death.
Additionally, the grieving family wants the POTUS to look into why former President Donald Trump quietly closed the case in December with no charges against the officers.
“It means everything to me and my family that we get some justice for Tamir,” Samaria Rice, Tamir’s mother, said on a call with community organizers. “What that looks like for me is accountability, and an indictment, and a conviction. So I’m keeping the pressure on—we’re going to keep doing the work and we’ll keep everything going until they give me some answers.”
The Rice family’s attorney sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland in April, highlighting political interference in the progress of the case.
“We are mindful that no one can guarantee a conviction and that prosecutions against police officers present special challenges. But it is vital for [the] DOJ to establish that those who enforce our laws are subject to our laws,” the letter read.
In recent months, Tamir Rice’s mother, Samaria Rice, blasted the Black Lives Matter movement and high-profile activists like Tamika D. Mallory and Benjamin Crump.
“We don’t want or need y’all parading in the streets accumulating donations, platforms, movie deals, etc. off the deaths of our loved ones, while the families and communities are left broken,” Rice wrote in a statement back in March.
“The national organizers and lawyers who’ve had criticism of the comments that Miss Rice has made about the movement should put those criticisms aside and support and show up for her on her own terms in her fight toward getting justice for her son,” Molly Nagin, a community organizer working with the family, told BuzzFeed News. “Maybe if you build trust by showing up for her, some of those criticisms that she’s raising won’t be as applicable, but right now they’re very applicable.”
