To bring federal civil rights charges in cases like these, the Justice Department must prove that an officer’s actions willfully broke the law and are not simply the result of a mistake, negligence or bad judgment.
But the video reviewed by federal prosecutors makes the sequence of events less clear.
Neither of two witnesses who either saw part of the encounter or reported hearing gunshots said they saw exactly what Rice was doing just before the shooting, according to the Justice Department.
In a statement at the scene to three other law enforcement officers, Loehmann “repeatedly and consistently stated” that Tamir was reaching for a gun before he shot him, prosecutors said.
Both Loehmann and Garmback also said in statements after the shooting that Loehmann had given Tamir “multiple commands to show his hands before shooting” and both officers saw him reaching for the weapon.