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Cleveland Wants Tamir Rice Estate to Pay $500 Ambulance Bill

The attorney for the Rice family said the bill "adds insult to homicide." Tamir Rice, 12, was fatally shot by a police officer in November 2014.
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The city of Cleveland filed a claim against the estate of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old fatally shot by police in 2014, seeking $500 in reimbursement for the ambulance ride and treatment.

Assistant Law Director Carl Meyer filed the creditor's claim in Cuyahoga County Probate Court on Wednesday, NBC affiliate WKYC reported.

Tamir was shot in the torso by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann on Nov. 22, 2014, after responding to a report of a "male with a gun" on the swings at a city park.

It turned out the boy had a pellet gun. Tamir died at the hospital the next morning.

"The Rice family is disturbed by the city's behavior," Rice family attorney Subodh Chandra said in a statement to WKYC.

"The callousness, insensitivity, and poor judgment required for the city to send a bill — its own police officers having slain 12-year-old Tamir — is breathtaking," Chandra said in the statement. "This adds insult to homicide. The Rice family considers this a form of harassment."

A grand jury declined to indict Loehmann and his partner, Frank Garmback, in December.

The claim says the $500 "is past due and owing for emergency medical services rendered as the decedent’s last dying expense."

Cleveland EMS billed $450 for ambulance advance life support and $50 for mileage, according to the invoice.

Related: Cleveland Boy Tamir Rice Wasn't Reaching for Pellet Gun: Report

Tamir’s mother has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Cleveland, Loehmann and the officers involved in the call that ended in the boy’s death. The case is pending.