No Indictment in Tamir Rice Case: A grand jury declined to charge a white police officer or his partner in the death of a 12-year-old black boy, who was fatally shot in November 2014 while carrying a pellet gun. Fox News reports that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty announced Monday that the grand jury, which had been meeting since mid-October, decided not to indict patrolman Timothy Loehmann was shooting Tamir Rice, calling the case "a perfect storm of human error," but that no crime was committed. The case largely centered around brief, grainy surveillance footage showing the encounter, which prosecutors had argued would be "misleading"because it "provides an incomplete picture" when viewed alone. Experts hired by both the prosecution and the Rice family testified and presented opposite findings over whether the shooting was justified and the grand jury, the burden of proof of which is to only decide that a crime might have been committed, concluded that no crime occurred.
L.A. County Seeks Lower Homicide Clearance Rate: With nearly half of the homicides in Los Angeles County between Jan. 1, 2000, to Dec. 31, 2010, unsolved, local law enforcement is looking for ways improve the homicide clearance rate. Sarah Favot of the L.A. Daily News reports that an analysis of homicide data over the 11-year period between found only 51.5% of homicide cases had been solved. To find the solutions for improvement, LA County officials are looking at retired Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters, whose 25-year tenure as the chief of that urban city where the clearance rate went from 28% in 1993 to 83% in 2012. Walters took several steps to help solve homicides as acting chief, including the creation of a gang homicide unit that was handled by gang specialists, development of a DNA cold case unite made up of retired detectives; regular collaboration with the FBI and the Orange County District Attorney's Office; the hiring of his own firearms examiner to avoid the 18-month wait for the county to process ballistics; setting up a Strike Force Team that analyzed crime trends, and utilized a large donation to establish a gang homicide reward program.
L.A. County Seeks Lower Homicide Clearance Rate: With nearly half of the homicides in Los Angeles County between Jan. 1, 2000, to Dec. 31, 2010, unsolved, local law enforcement is looking for ways improve the homicide clearance rate. Sarah Favot of the L.A. Daily News reports that an analysis of homicide data over the 11-year period between found only 51.5% of homicide cases had been solved. To find the solutions for improvement, LA County officials are looking at retired Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters, whose 25-year tenure as the chief of that urban city where the clearance rate went from 28% in 1993 to 83% in 2012. Walters took several steps to help solve homicides as acting chief, including the creation of a gang homicide unit that was handled by gang specialists, development of a DNA cold case unite made up of retired detectives; regular collaboration with the FBI and the Orange County District Attorney's Office; the hiring of his own firearms examiner to avoid the 18-month wait for the county to process ballistics; setting up a Strike Force Team that analyzed crime trends, and utilized a large donation to establish a gang homicide reward program.
Leave a comment