CLEVELAND, Ohio – A lawyer representing the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer on Saturday, also defended the boy's mother in a drug trafficking case.
Court records show attorney Tim Kucharski represented Samaria Rice in 2012 when she faced drug possession and trafficking charges in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.
Kucharski is also the attorney who on Sunday told Northeast Ohio Media Group that he will launch his own investigation into what happened in the moments before Tamir was shot by a rookie police officer at Cudell Recreation Center at Detroit Avenue and West Boulevard.
Samaria Rice was sentenced in February 2013 to two years of probation after she pleaded guilty to the trafficking charge. Charges for drug possession and having criminal tools were dropped when she pleaded, court records show.
Tamir's mother was forced to surrender three cell phones, some cash and a digital scale upon the conviction. At a March 2014 probation hearing, Rice was ordered to undergo monthly drug testing, attend three addiction meetings per week and obtain a GED, records show.
Rice in 2001 case was charged with aggravated robbery and assault. She pleaded guilty to the assault charge after a firearms specification was dropped. The aggravated robbery charge was also dropped, records show.
A judge gave Rice a suspended six-month sentence in county jail.
Dan Flannery, a clinical child psychologist and researcher at Case Western Reserve University, said that children exposed to criminal activity could be impacted by that behavior.
"Growing up in such an environment can be confusing for a young person," Flannery said. "They could have questions about how to react in certain situations ...or how to react to police depending on what their previous interactions with law enforcement have been like."