Officer Who Killed 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice Just Got Two More Police Jobs in West Virginia

Public outcry erupted last July when news broke that Timothy Loehmann – the man who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in a Cleveland park in 2014 – was hired as a police officer by the City of White Sulphur Springs. The day after news of his hiring broke, Loehmann resigned (the chief who hired him stepping down days later).

However, public records show Loehmann was recently hired again by not one, but two departments in West Virginia: the Snowshoe Resort Community District and the Gilmer County Sheriff's Office. 

Written by Kyle Vass, Dec. 16, 2025

Loehmann first made national headlines when he responded to a 911 call about a boy playing with a “probably fake” gun in a Cleveland park. He shot and killed the unarmed child within two seconds of exiting his police cruiser. Every time Loehmann’s name has appeared in the media since, it’s been for being fired from or resigning from police departments under public pressure. 

Loehmann was fired from the Cleveland Police Department not for Rice’s killing, but for lying on his application about a finding from a previous employer, the Independence, Ohio, Police Department, that he “could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts or recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.” The omission came to light after he killed Rice. 

He has worked at and resigned from three departments since then.

In Bellaire, Ohio and Tioga, Pennsylvania, Loehmann only worked a combined total of five days before resigning twice amid public outrage. But when he arrived in West Virginia to work for the White Sulphur Springs Police Department, he was hired discreetly without any public mention of his name by the city of their police department. 

When news of Loehmann’s hiring broke, White Sulphur residents and activists sprang into action, prompting his immediate resignation. 

But according to public records from the West Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Office, Loehmann has been working as a police officer for two agencies in the state, starting in June at Snowshoe Resort Community District and in August at the Gilmer County Sheriff’s Department.

Dragline reached out to Snowshoe Mountain Resort, Alterra Mountain Co. (who own Snowshoe), the Snowshoe Resort Community District (a collective of resorts and businesses that operate as a political subdivision in the area) by email and phone and received no response. The Gilmer County Sheriff’s Department, and the Gilmer County Commission responded when called and said that they had no comment for this story. 

When reached for comment, Samaria Rice (the mother of Tamir Rice) said she doesn’t understand why Loehmann still wants to be a police officer. “This man lied on his application to be a police officer in the first place,” Rice said. “He was crying on the gun range and was very careless with his gun. That proves that he's unfit. I don't understand what's going on here.”

Tamir Rice poses for a selfie in 2014. (Courtesy of Samaria Rice)

Snowshoe Resort Community District is a political subdivision that collects fees instead of taxes to operate. Loehmann was hired at the recommendation of the District’s Chief of Police Bryan Grimm, according to minutes from the quasi-governmental agency’s board meetings. Grimm was a lieutenant at White Sulphur Springs during Loehmann’s brief stint of employment there last summer.

According to records from the West Virginia Secretary of State, Grimm is also the president of his local Fraternal Order of Police – a police union and advocacy organization.

Police unions, specifically the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, played a crucial role in defending Loehmann in the press and in the courts after Rice’s killing. In addition to providing him with representation while he appealed his firing from the Cleveland Police Department, then-CPPA president Steven Loomis blamed Rice for being killed by Loehmann, citing his stature as a relevant factor in his being shot by the officer. 

In addition to Chief Grimm and Officer Loehmann, the only other officer on the Snowshoe District police force is Officer Tim Gray, the former Princeton police chief. Gray resigned five months after being named in a federal lawsuit over the killing of Barry Yearout, a Mercer County man. Although then-Chief Gray was not on the scene at the time of the killing, the officer who beat and killed Barry Yearout in his own home said in a deposition that training he received under Gray’s leadership taught him he could enter someone’s home and arrest them for exercising their First Amendment rights. 

Before hiring Gray to the Snowshoe police force, Chief Grimm told the board he had known Gray “for over 20 years,” according to board meeting minutes from April. According to results from Dragline’s Police Accountability Dashboard, Grimm and Gray were co-workers at the Princeton Police Department where their employment overlapped for eight years.

To Samaria Rice, the hiring of Loehmann reflects broader issues with the way police are hired without being held to decent standards. "It goes back to a broken system and broken officers, corrupt officers being promoted to higher positions or being hired to protect and serve the community that they have failed over and over again,” Rice said. “These communities should be scared for their lives.”