Cleveland sues family of 12yr old boy who was killed by police over $500 unpaid medical bill

Cleveland is suing the family of Tamir Rice over an unpaid ambulance bill for $500 after the city’s police officers shot the 12-year-old dead. The Rice family still owe the city for the work done by paramedics, who tried in vain to save Tamir’s life after he was shot in November 2014 while holding a toy gun, according to a claim filed in probate court on Wednesday.

Cleveland.com reports that assistant law director Carl Meyers filed a claim in Cuyahoga County Probate Court, informing the Rice family that they need to pay the bill for 'advance life support' and the cost of the ambulance ride to MetroHealth Medical Center. 

It comes just weeks after a grand jury decided not to indict the two white police officers who fatally shot the boy.

Subodh Chandra, a lawyer for the Rice family, said the bill ‘adds insult to homicide’. 

'The callousness, insensitivity, and poor judgment required for the city to send a bill - its own police officers having slain 12-year-old Tamir - is breathtaking,' Chandra told the website. 'This adds insult to homicide.'

The claim says that under the Ohio Revised Code, the family is responsible for ‘emergency medical services rendered as the decedent’s last dying expense.’

A breakdown of the $500 bill is even provided: $450 for ‘advance life support’ and $50 for the cost of the ambulance driving from where Tamir was shot to the hospital where he died.

Earl Ward, another family lawyer, branded the bill ‘cold and callous,’ adding it is ‘disrespectful to a family who is still grieving, especially on the heels of the grand jury decision'.

He said: ‘It’s a $500 bill and the city is responsible for his death, so I don’t see how they could justify that.’

Ward said he had informed Tamir’s mother Samaria Rice about the filing, the New York Daily News reports.

Tamir was fatally shot by Timothy Loehmann while playing with a pellet gun on November 22, 2014.

In the build-up to the shooting, he had been playing in the park and was reportedly pointing the fake weapon at people, prompting concern from someone who called 911.

His toy was missing the orange clip-on, which would have warned police and passers-by that the gun was not real.

The 911 dispatcher told the officers there was a man with a gun, but failed to pass on the information that it was a young boy and that the caller has said that the gun was ‘probably fake’.

Shocking surveillance footage of the incident showed officer Frank Garmback speeding to the scene in his patrol car before Loehmann, a rookie cop, gets out and immediately fires at Tamir.

According to the Daily News, two independent reports concluded the shooting was not justified.

On December 28 last year, a grand jury decided not to indict the two white police officers for their role in the fatal shooting of the young black boy.