Updated: Cleveland Asked Tamir Rice’s Family to Pay $500 for Their Child’s Last Ambulance Ride

Now city officials say it was all a mistake.

Tony Dejak/AP

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Update, Thursday, February 11, 2016: Cleveland officials said they are withdrawing the claim saying the Rice family owed $500 for their son’s last ambulance ride. At a news conference on Thursday, officials explained that the claim had been been closed in February 2015 after the city absorbed the cost, but that it was regenerated after the family’s attorney asked the city to forward a billing statement for services provided on the day of the shooting. Mayor Frank Jackson apologized to the Rice family, saying they never intended to issue a bill.

 

Cleveland officials are holding a news conference to address a claim filed Wednesday notifying the Tamir Rice estate that it owes the city money for the boy’s ambulance ride and medical services he received after he was shot by a police officer.

Posted by cleveland.com on Thursday, February 11, 2016

Less than two months after a grand jury decided not to indict the Cleveland police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, the city has filed a claim saying the boy owed $500 “for emergency medical services rendered as the decedent’s last dying expense.” In response to the claim, a Rice family attorney told the Cleveland Scene that the move “displays a new pinnacle of callousness and insensitivity.”

The mayor’s office could not be reached immediately for comment.

Here is the full text of the claim:

 

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OUR DEADLINE MATH PROBLEM

It’s risky, but also unavoidable: A full one-third of the dollars that we need to pay for the journalism you rely on has to get raised in December. A good December means our newsroom is fully staffed, well-resourced, and on the beat. A bad one portends budget trouble and hard choices.

The December 31 deadline is drawing nearer, and if we’re going to have any chance of making our goal, we need those of you who’ve never pitched in before to join the ranks of MoJo donors.

We simply can’t afford to come up short. There is no cushion in our razor-thin budget—no backup, no alternative sources of revenue to balance our books. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the fierce journalism we do. That’s why we need you to show up for us right now.

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