TIOGA, Pa. — A few days after swearing in as a new Tioga Borough police officer, the former Cleveland officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice in 2014 has now withdrawn his application.
Tioga Borough officials confirmed on their website that Timothy Loehmann withdrew his application after being hired to join the police department located in rural Pennsylvania.
Tioga is located in north-central Pennsylvania about 240 miles from Cleveland.
The abrupt move came after dozens demonstrated outside of the Tioga Borough office on Wednesday evening after news spread after Loehmann was announced as the borough's newest officer.
Previously, Steve Hazlett, president of Tioga Borough City Council, had posted a photo on Facebook that showed Loehmann being sworn in at a meeting as a new police officer in Tioga.
On Thursday, Hazlett briefly posted Loehmann's decision to pull out.
That post has been deleted, a move that confused Tioga Mayor David Wilcox.
"Right now, I'm not sure what's happening," Wilcox said prior to the borough's website post.
On Wednesday, 3News spoke with Tamir Rice's mother about Loehmann being hired.
"It’s really pathetic and sad that anybody would give this man a job," Tamir Rice's mother Samaria told 3News. "Timothy Loehmann should never have a job, nowhere across the country, after murdering my son."
12-year-old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by Loehmann on Nov. 22, 2014, after police received a call about a "guy with a pistol" outside of Cleveland's Cudell Recreation Center. Rice had been playing with a pellet gun, and officers said they did not know that he was a juvenile and that he was playing with a toy before he was fatally shot twice.
The caller, who was drinking a beer and waiting for a bus, told a 911 dispatcher that it was probably a juvenile and the gun might be "fake," though that information was never relayed to the officers.
In 2015, an Ohio grand jury declined to charge Loehmann. No one from the Cleveland Division of Police was charged in this case.
In the following year, Loehmann was fired from the Cleveland Division of Police as an investigation showed that he lied on his initial application.
Two years later, in 2018, Loehmann joined the Bellaire Police Department but resigned a few days after being hired.
Stick with 3News as we continue to learn more details and investigate this story.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above previously aired on 3News on May 25, 2021, when 3News' Russ Mitchell spoke with Tamir Rice's mother.