On November 23, 2014, a Cleveland, Ohio, police officer, Timothy Loehmann, shot twelve-year-old Tamir Elijah Rice (2002–2014), who was playing with a toy gun in a park outside the Cudell Recreation Center. Tamir died the next day. The police were responding to a 911 call about someone in the park with a gun, and video shows that Loehmann shot Tamir almost immediately upon arriving at the park. In 2015, a grand jury declined to bring charges against Loehmann, but in 2017 the police department fired him—not for killing Tamir, but for lying on his application for the Cleveland police department.
Although the city of Cleveland admitted no worong doing, it settled a $6 million lawsuit with the Rice family. Tamir's mother, Samaria, is building a legacy that honors her son's life—the Tamir Rice Foundation (founded in 2016), which advocates for police reform, and the Tamir Rice Afrocentric Cultural Center, which provides after-school programs for inner-city children and teens.
At the time of his death, Tamir was a sixth-grade student at Marion-Seltzer Elementary school, where he enjoyed art and sports.