Pennsylvania town broke the law by hiring police officer who killed Black 12-year-old, AG Shapiro says

A tiny borough in northern Pennsylvania broke the law when it hired the police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, according to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

In a letter to Tioga Borough President Steve Hazlett and obtained by The Inquirer, Shapiro said the town failed to conduct a background check on Timothy Loehmann that was required by Act 57, a law that created a database to track police misconduct and guide hiring for law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania.

» READ MORE: Officer who killed Tamir Rice resigns from Pa. borough police less than two days after he was sworn in

“Records show that this check was not performed when Tioga Borough hired Loehmann,” Shapiro wrote. “To be clear, failure to thoroughly check a potential hire’s background, including searching the database for any past disciplinary activities, is a violation of state law.”

The letter was also sent to the Pennsylvania State Police commissioner, Col. Robert Evanchick.

Loehmann, who killed Tamir in November 2014 while a member of the Cleveland Division of Police, was hired as Tioga’s lone police officer last week. He withdrew his application two days later due to widespread outrage from Tioga residents, Mayor David Wilcox, and others, including Samaria Rice, Tamir’s mother.

“He shouldn’t be a police officer anywhere in the United States,” Rice told the Washington Post. “I’m actually shocked that anybody would give him a job knowing what he has done to my family.”

Hazlett and his wife, MaryBess Hazlett, who is also on the borough’s council, resigned from their positions Friday, according to the Williamsport Sun-Gazette. Hazlett acknowledged to the newspaper he was aware of Loehmann’s background when the council hired him as the town’s first police officer in about a year and a half. Hazlett also mocked Tamir’s death in a 2015 Facebook post.

» READ MORE: Officer who killed Tamir Rice resigns from Pa. borough police less than two days after he was sworn in

Hazlett also claimed Wilcox knew Loehmann’s past, a fact Wilcox disputes. Wilcox said he was misled about the officer’s background and called for two additional council members to resign over the hiring. The mayor wrote on Facebook that the council members should be “ashamed” and had “admitted to knowing about this from the beginning.”

On Tuesday evening, the borough council held an emergency meeting on the controversy.

The Sun-Gazette reported that council members formally accepted the resignations of Hazlett and his wife, as well as the borough solicitor and a borough code enforcer. The 10-minute meeting was described as contentious.

Neither Wilcox nor Hazlett responded to requests for comment, and Loehmann could not be immediately reached.

It is unclear whether Shapiro will pursue any action against the town. Shapiro’s office declined to comment on any further steps.

Pennsylvania’s database of police personal records is riddled with loopholes that raise questions about its ability to flag police officers with histories of misconduct, according to a Spotlight PA review. Among other issues, agencies are required to consult the database before hiring, but there are no penalties for noncompliance, Spotlight PA found.

Loehmann shot and killed Tamir in November 2014 while responding to a call that someone was waving a gun near a recreation center, though the man who made the initial call warned that the gun could be fake and that the person was “probably a juvenile,” according to the New York Times.

Tamir was holding a toy pellet gun when police arrived. Within seconds of his arrival, Loehmann — a rookie — shot and killed Tamir, setting off widespread protests. Loehmann and another officer were cleared of wrongdoing by an Ohio grand jury in 2015, and the Justice Department has declined to reopen a civil rights investigation into Tamir’s death, according to the Associated Press.

Loehmann was ultimately fired by Cleveland police in 2017 after it was discovered he failed to disclose he was allowed to quit his job as a police officer in Independence, Ohio, after showing a “dangerous lack of composure” during firearms training.

The village of Bellaire, Ohio, hired Loehmann for a part-time police job in October 2018, but residents there were also outraged, forcing him to resign days later.

Staff writer Robert Moran contributed to this article.