Tamir Rice cremated six months after shooting

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Six months after 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by Cleveland police, his family has had his body cremated, reports The Washington Post.

Tamir Rice cremated

The body of Tamir was held in storage and the family did not want to bury him until after the official investigation was completed.

But as the probe continues to stretch on, and following a burst of fundraising for the family after The Post and other outlets noted the family’s financial troubles, the family decided to have Rice cremated — which was first reported by The Daily Kos.

“Tamir has been cremated,” said Walter Madison, the Ohio-based attorney working with Rice’s family, who said that the decision was made late last week. “His mother made the grief-stricken decision to have her son cremated.”

Investigation

The Rice family had been paying to preserve his body, arguing that they did not want Tamir put to final rest until the legal probe of the shooting was complete in case there was a need to conduct an additional medical examination.

“What everyone needs to understand is that Samaria Rice is a mother first,” he said. “Whether in life or death, her instinct is to take care of her child. Him not being put to final rest was just physically, emotionally, psychologically unsettling to her.”

Tamir was shot Nov. 22 after a resident exiting a community center near the park where the boy was playing phoned police to report a young man with what appeared to be a gun.