by Erica Hellerstein
Timothy Loehmann, the
26-year-old Cleveland police officer who fatally gunned down 12-year-old Tamir
Rice, admitted on his job application for the Cleveland Police Department that
his primary source of income prior to his hiring was “under-the-table jobs,”
ThinkProgress found after reviewing a public records request from the city’s
Police Department.
Despite listing his primary source
of income for six months prior to his application as “under-the-table jobs,”
Loehmann was nevertheless hired for the law enforcement position in March 2013.
From July to December 2012,
Loehmann worked as a full-time Patrolman for the City of Independence, Ohio.
“Upon completion of the police academy, I received my OPOTA commission on
December 4, 2012. I resigned from my position on December 5, 2012 for personal
reasons,” Loehmann wrote in a March 12 statement detailing his work history.
However, documents from the
Independence Police Department tell a different story — that the officer who
shot and killed Rice for playing with a toy pistol had a flawed gun handling
record himself, and that had he not formally resigned from his job he would
have been dismissed.
In a November 2012 letter
contained in Loehmann’s file, Independence Deputy Chief Jim Pulak recounted a
disturbing series of events in which the young officer buckled under pressure,
displayed startling emotional immaturity, and conducted the most basic
functions of his job with apathy and carelessness. “He was not mentally
prepared to do firearm training,” Pulak wrote, adding that during firearms
qualification training Loehmann was “distracted and weepy. He could not follow
simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and
his handgun performance was dismal. After some talking it was clear to Sgt.
Tinnirello that the recruit was just not mentally prepared to be doing firearm
training.”
Pulak attributes Loehmann’s emotional
volatility to a turbulent relationship with his “on and off again girlfriend
whom he was dealing with till 0400 hrs the night before. Some of the comments
made by Ptl. Loehmann during this discourse were to the effect of, ‘I should
have gone to NY,’ ‘maybe I should quit,’ ‘I have no friends,’ ‘I only hang out
with 74 yr old priests,’ ‘I have cried every day for 4 months about this
girl.’”
He concluded that Loehmann
“does not possess the maturity, commitment, and discretion necessary to perform
well as an officer and recommended that he be “released from the employment of
the City of Independence. Due to this dangerous loss of composure during live
range training and his inability to manage this personal stress, I do not
believe Ptl. Loehmann shows the maturity needed to work in our employment…I do
not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct these
deficiencies.”
