Video Shows Cleveland Officer Shot Boy 2 Seconds After Pulling Up

A police officer who shot and killed a 12-year-old boy outside a Cleveland recreation center fired within two seconds after the patrol car he was riding in pulled up next to the boy, a video released on Wednesday by the Cleveland police showed.

The video, which was made public at the request of the boy's family, showed the boy, Tamir Rice, walking in the park pointing what resembled a weapon on Saturday before the officer fatally shot him. The police said the officer yelled at Tamir three times to show his hands, but the boy instead reached to his waistband for the object, which turned out to be a fake gun.

The death of Tamir came two days before a St. Louis County grand jury decided not to indict a white officer in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. People have rallied in Cleveland to protest both Tamir's shooting and the grand jury's decision. At a news conference, the police released the grainy video from a security camera at the recreation center and audio from a dispatch call asking the police to respond to the park.

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's office will present evidence from the police to a grand jury, which will decide whether to bring charges against the officer.

"This is not an effort to exonerate," Deputy Chief Edward Tomba of the Cleveland Police Department said of the video at a news conference on Wednesday. "It's not an effort to show the public that anybody did anything wrong. This is an obvious tragic event where a young member of our community lost their life. We've got two officers that were out there protecting the public that just had to, you know, do something that nobody wants to do."

The police also released the names of the two officers involved in the shooting, who have been placed on administrative leave.

Timothy Loehmann, 26, the officer who shot the boy, was appointed to the force in March. The officer who was driving the police car, Frank Garmback, 46, had been with the department since 2008.

The boy's parents, Samaria Rice and Leonard Warner, said they believed the video showed that the situation could have been avoided and that "Tamir should still be here with us."

"The video shows one thing distinctly: The police officers reacted quickly," they said. They asked for residents to protest "peacefully and responsibly" and asked the police and prosecutors to thoroughly examine the shooting.

In a 911 call released by the police, the caller says that "a guy" who appeared to be a juvenile was pointing a pistol at people and scaring them, noting twice that the gun was "probably fake." On Wednesday, the police released dispatch calls showing that the officers were not told that the gun might not be real. The police later identified it as an "airsoft" replica gun resembling a semiautomatic pistol.