CLEVELAND, Ohio — A disciplinary hearing was held Friday for the 911 dispatcher who took the initial call that set off a chain of events that led a Cleveland police officer shooting 12-year-old Tamir Rice, city officials said.
Constance Hollinger faces up to 10 days suspension without pay. Cleveland police Chief Calvin Williams has not rendered a decision in the case, and there is no deadline for his decision.
The hearing came more than two years after the Nov. 22, 2014 shooting that led to Tamir’s death.
Hollinger failed to give the other dispatcher pertinent information regarding the call she got regarding Tamir, according to the disciplinary charges sent to her Jan. 26.
The caller told Hollinger that the suspect was “probably a juvenile” and that the gun he had was “probably fake,” according to the charges. Hollinger never relayed that information to dispatcher Beth Mandl, who later resigned.
Mandl then told officers to investigate someone with a gun scaring people outside Cudell Recreation Center. Tamir had an airsoft pellet gun.
Then-Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said in December 2015 that the errors were “substantial, contributing factors” to the shooting.
McGinty cited the errors when announcing that a county grand jury elected not to bring criminal charges against the two police officers involved in the shooting — Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garnback– because the officers believed Tamir was holding a real gun and that their lives were in danger.
McGinty said the shooting might have been avoided if the information was properly relayed to the officers.
She is the fourth person to be given disciplinary charges in the case.
Loehmann, who fired the shot that killed Tamir, and Garmback, who drove Loehmann to the recreation center, were both handed disciplinary charges in December. The third officer, William Cunningham, was also sent a pre-disciplinary letter.
Loehmann’s disciplinary charges accuse him of lying on his application when trying to be hired in Cleveland, including that he was allowed to resign from the Independence Police Department after an emotional breakdown on the gun range.
Garmback’s disciplinary letter says he erred when he drove too close to Tamir when responding to what Garmback believed to be an armed suspect. Garmback also was accused of failing to report the time he arrived at the scene, which is also a punishable offense.
Cunningham, who was working off-duty at Cudell Recreation Center before the shooting happened, was accused of lying to investigators and working off-duty at the rec center without permission.
There was no indication that Cunningham knew that Tamir was playing with an airsoft pellet gun outside the center.
Hollinger was disciplined in July 2016 for treating a 12-year-old girl who was reporting that she was sexually assaulted in a “rude and unprofessional manner.” She was suspended without pay for five days in that case.
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