How Activists Intend to Force the Arrest of Police Officers
It’s been 199 days since Tamir Rice was shot to death by a Cleveland police officer. And for a group of community leaders in the Forest City, that’s too long to wait for prosecutors to charge the officers involved in the shooting. Instead, they went to a municipal court judge Tuesday morning and asked him to issue a warrant for the officers on charges of murder, aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, negligent homicide, and dereliction of duty.
If that sounds confusing, it’s not just you. The activists made the request under an obscure provision of Ohio law that entitles citizens to file an affidavit demanding an arrest. While a few other states have similar clauses, the law is little-known and seldom-used—especially in cases of murder. A close reading of the statute suggests that it’s unlikely to seriously change the direction of the case, since any murder charge ultimately has to go through a grand jury. But the filing of affidavits sends a signal, and might add some pressure on the prosecutor to file charges against Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback."
“What you see here is one of the most American things I’ve seen in my life,” said Walter Madison, an attorney for the Rice family, at a press conference on the courthouse steps after filing the affidavits. “The people have taken the opportunity to make the government work for them. This is not a circumvention. This is simply applying the law that is available.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the union representing Cleveland police did not agree, calling it an attempt to “hijack rule of law.” Yet the statute is clear—the coalition behind the affidavits is well within its rights"
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/tamir-rice-case-cleveland/395420/
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