Officer who killed Tamir Rice resigns from new police post

The Cleveland police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 resigned from his new police post on Thursday, two days after being sworn in.

Driving the news: Former officer Timothy Loehmann was hired as the only police officer in the small Pennsylvania town of Tioga this week, sparking backlash, the Washington Post reported.

• David Wilcox, Tioga Borough’s Mayor, said that he was not given the opportunity to review Loehmann's resume and that the Rice case did not come up in the process, per the Post.
• “I was under the impression that there was a thorough background check into him, that he didn’t have any issues,” Wilcox said, per the Plain Dealer.
• Wilcox called for three borough council members to resign over Loehmann's hiring, according to The Washington Post.

What they're saying: Samaria Rice, Tamir Rice's mother, said it's "pathetic, it’s pitiful, it’s a shame" that the police officer who killed her son has a new job with a different police force, Cleveland 19 reports.

• "The system is broken, because police reform is actually not working. You would hire someone knowing he has murdered a 12-year-old child. How dare you. How dare you do it," Rice said.

Subodh Chandra, the attorney for Rice’s family and his estate, told the Post that he was "shocked and yet not surprised" by Loehmann's hiring.

• "The level of bad judgment here by the Tioga Borough Council is really unfathomable, and I hope they will be held to account."

The big picture: The family of Tamir Rice last year urged the Justice Department to reopen the federal probe into his death. The DOJ opened an investigation in 2015 after a local grand jury did not bring charges against the officers.

• Loehmann was never charged and was fired in 2017 for lying on his job application, per the Post.

Go deeper: Tamir Rice's family urges DOJ to reopen investigation of police killing