Culture
How Psychology Explains the Tamir Rice Shooting
People attach violent stereotypes to images of black boys as young as 5 years old, new research finds.
On a Sunday in November 2014, a Cleveland man dialed 911 to report that a young black boy—“probably a juvenile”—was brandishing a gun around in the park near him. “It’s probably fake, but it’s scaring the shit out of me,” the caller said on the phone. The officer who responded fatally shot the subject of the 911 call within seconds of arriving. The boy, it turned out, was 11-year-old; and his gun was just a toy.
A year later, a grand jury decided not to charge the officer who shot and killed Tamir Rice. Here’s Timothy J. McGinty, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor, who advised the jury not to bring criminal charges, via The New York Times: