Tamir Rice Shooting

[OptimusPrime]

This case they'll probably win. Just a matter of the amount.

Yep. I'll be paying the settlement while the murderous cops get a raise and a pat on the back.

 

[David.]

Yep. I'll be paying the settlement while the murderous cops get a raise and a pat on the back.

It's more than that.

How about showing some humanity and sparing 500 bucks considering it's a tragedy and it cost a family their son. I'm sure they have it.

Do the right thing. Not see what you can get away with out of people who are suffering.

 

[Soda]

I bet some dolt lawyer decided that taking on the bill unilaterally would be received as taking responsibility, something the City wants no part of. I'm not sure what they should've done, but clearly they should've been more deliberate in the way they handled this.

 

[The Oi]

Bureaucracy at it's finest.

 

[OptimusPrime]

It's more than that.

How about showing some humanity and sparing 500 bucks considering it's a tragedy and it cost a family their son. I'm sure they have it.

Do the right thing. Not see what you can get away with out of people who are suffering.

You're not wrong, but how about showing some humanity and not slaughtering an unarmed human being?

I was replying to Q-Tip who claims these civil lawsuits are some kind of deterrent to this sort of thing. I don't see how that is the case when the murderers get off with a bonus and vacation time while the taxpayers pay the settlement.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I was replying to Q-Tip who claims these civil lawsuits are some kind of deterrent to this sort of thing. I don't see how that is the case when the murderers get off with a bonus and vacation time while the taxpayers pay the settlement.

Who got a bonus and vacation time for that?

 

[spydy13]

Update from yesterday. City is eating the bill.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/inde...als_withdraw_claim_asking.html#incart_m-rpt-1

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The city of Cleveland withdrew a claim that Tamir Rice's estate owed it money for driving the 12-year-old boy to the hospital and providing first aid after a city police officer shot him.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson on Thursday apologized to the Rice family and said city lawyers were following procedure. He said officials should have thought better of issuing the claim due to the sensitivity of the case.

The document filed Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Probate Court notified Tamir's estate that it owes the city $500 for "ambulance advance life support" and mileage expenses for the ambulance ride to the hospital where the boy died.

City lawyers who filed the claim were following procedure, but they didn't account for the sensitive nature of the Tamir case or notify the mayor before it was submitted, Jackson said.

"It was mistake in terms of us not flagging it, but it was not a mistake in terms of the legal process," Jackson said.

Jackson denied that the city was trying to get money from the Rice family.

Now, by withdrawing the claim, the city is agreeing to pay for the portion of Tamir's medical care that Medicaid didn't cover, Jackson said. The bill will be written off as a loss to the city, since there is no account set aside to pay for unpaid EMS and ambulance fees.

Medicaid agreed to pay about $173 of the EMS and ambulance fees in February 2015, Jackson said. The city determined that it was unlikely that the family could afford to pay the rest of the bills, so it absorbed the remaining $327 and closed the account.

But the account was reopened this week when Douglas Winston, the executor of Tamir's will, sent a letter to the city asking about Tamir's EMS and ambulance bills.

The city was obligated to notify Winston of the medical costs because of Medicaid policies, Jackson said. Medicaid is meant to be used as a last resort. Once the city learned that the estate existed, and that it was a possible alternative to Medicaid, it was required to notify the estate of the unpaid bills.

Subodh Chandra, one of the attorneys representing Tamir's family in a civil lawsuit against the city, the police department and the officers involved in the shooting, wasn't satisfied with Jackson's explanation.

Chandra questioned the city's explanation about the claim against the estate because the city received a portion of the claim from Medicaid, which would have satisfied the cost of the ambulance ride and the medical expenses.

"If the city accepts Medicaid reimbursement, there is no additional amount owed," he said in an email. "That's the basic principle of insurance and Medicaid/Medicare law. They can't hold their hand out for more."

Attempts to reach a representative at the Ohio Department of Medicaid were unsuccessful.

Chandra said the filing was "deeply disturbing" to the Rice family.

"The suggestion that that the estate-administrator sending a routine public-records request to the city about a child's death would then result in the city filing a court claim—particularly when the city's own police officers killed the child and the claim is already time-barred under Ohio law—makes no sense to the Rice family," Chandra said.

Thursday was the second time since Tamir's death that Jackson apologized to the Rice family for a controversial court filing that slipped past him.

The mayor issued a similar apology last March when city lawyers used language in a court filing that said Tamir's death was caused by his own actions.

In that case, officials also said they were following routine procedures.

Tamir was shot by a Cleveland police officer on Nov. 22, 2014 after he was seen playing with a replica gun in a West Side park.

His family sued the city, in part arguing that officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback showed indifference to Tamir by not giving him any first aid after Loehmann shot him twice.

The officers stood around for four minutes, until an FBI agent arrived at the scene and gave the boy first aid.