The West Virginia Police Officer Who Fatally Shot Tamir Rice Quits Because of Public Anger

The police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland in 2014 has quit a small police force in West Virginia.

In a statement to NBC News on Monday, Mayor Kathy Glover said that Timothy Loehmann had been hired by the city of White Sulphur Springs in southeastern West Virginia as a trainee police officer and an at-will worker. White Sulpher Springs is about 370 miles from Cleveland, and about 2,220 people are living there.

According to her, Timothy Loehmann quit his job on July 1, 2024, and is no longer working for the city. She also said that she couldn’t say anything else because it was a personnel issue.

When asked about when Loehmann was hired and whether she had agreed to it, Glover did not respond right away. According to what she said, Loehmann was hired because the chief of police asked for him and thought he would be a good fit.

Since he left Cleveland, this is the second time Loehmann has quit a police role.

Before the mayor made the statement, White Sulphur Springs City Council member Thomas Taylor told NBC News that Loehmann had been hired. The Real WV, a non-profit multimedia group, was the first to report it. In an interview, Taylor said that Loehmann could only be hired by the police chief and the mayor. He said that the city council did not have any say in the hiring process and did not have any power over personnel problems.

Smith said, “From what I know, the police chief hired him.”

He said that people were upset about the decision on social media and that he thought it would be brought up at the next city council meeting beginning next Monday.

When called on Monday morning, Chief D.S. Teubert said he wasn’t allowed to talk about Loehmann but might be able to later. When asked for a statement after Loehmann’s resignation was made public, he did not respond.

Teubert told Cleveland.com that he did hire Loehmann. During the past year or so, he watched films and read books about Loehmann’s background, including the killing of Tamir.

Teubert told the news source, “As a person, I looked at the whole thing.” “I looked into it.” I looked into everything. Everything is just sad. When there’s a shooting, does any police person in the world have a chance? If they were shot, do they deserve to never work as a police officer again?

Tamir, a Black man, was playing with a pellet gun outside of a Cleveland leisure center on November 22, 2014, when Loehmann shot and killed him. Loehmann and his partner at the time, a veteran training officer, had just arrived.

When Loehmann and his partner at the time, Frank Garmback, got a call about someone pointing a gun at people, they went to the scene. The person who called 911 said that it looked like the gun belonged to a child, but that information was never shared with Loehmann and Garmback. In statements made after the killing, both men said that Loehmann told Tamir more than once to show his hands before shooting him.

Months of protests over how police treat Black people began with the killing. A state grand jury chose not to charge Loehmann or Garmback with a crime. Loehmann was fired by the Cleveland Police Department in May 2017, about three years after killing Tamir. The department said that his 2013 application was incomplete. The Justice Department said in December 2020 that Loehmann and Garmback would not be charged with any federal crimes. They said that the video of the killing was not clear enough for prosecutors to be sure of what happened.

A message left at a number that was made public for Loehmann was not answered right away. He has quit work at small police departments twice before. His lawyer at the time, Henry Hilow, said that he quit his job with the Tioga, Pennsylvania, police force in 2022 after his hiring caused controversy. During the same year, he pulled his application to work as a part-time police officer in Bellaire, Ohio, after Tamir’s mother and other people spoke out against it.

Teubert told Cleveland.com that he knew Loehmann through military friends and that he didn’t think Loehmann had done anything wrong.

“What crime did he plead guilty to?” It was Teubert. “I just want this to be fair for everyone.” I wouldn’t have hired him if I thought he had done anything illegal or wrong.

Teubert was also surprised that the hire had caused so much fuss.

People aren’t looking at what happened, Teubert said. “I know there are two sides to every story.” “It’s so sad that young man died.” That doesn’t change anything for me.

Cleveland paid $6 million to settle a case with Tamir’s family. In the deal, no one admitted they did anything wrong.

Subodh Chandra, a lawyer who worked for the family and estate of Tamir Rice, said that Loehmann should never be given a badge and gun again and asked him why he still wants to be a police officer.

“Any smart police officer or member of any community should be able to sense Timothy Loehmann’s radioactivity,” Chandra said.