Last month he publicly released two "independent" reports stating that the shooting was "objectively reasonable." It was an inappropriate choice for a prosecutor in the middle of a grand jury hearing, ultimately adding to the wealth of evidence that the McGinty is protecting the police and not the victim's family. For more on this “stalled and sabotaged” case, check out this comprehensive timeline by ThinkProgress.

Tamir Rice was 12 years old.

Tamir Rice may have made headlines, but he isn't the only victim of excessive force by Cleveland police. In 2014, six police officers shot 137 times at a vehicle with two people inside. Both were killed, both were unarmed, and no officers were convicted.

The Department of Justice investigated the department for more than two years before releasing a report critical of the police, stating that they consistently used excessive force and violated the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens. From the DOJ:

Our investigation concluded that there is reasonable cause to believe that CDP engages in a pattern or practice of using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. That pattern manifested in a range of ways, including: The unnecessary and excessive use of deadly force, including shootings and head strikes with impact weapons;

The unnecessary, excessive or retaliatory use of less lethal force including tasers, chemical spray and fists;

Excessive force against persons who are mentally ill or in crisis, including in cases where the officers were called exclusively for a welfare check; and

The employment of poor and dangerous tactics that place officers in situations where avoidable force becomes inevitable and places officers and civilians at unnecessary risk.

In May, the Cleveland Police Department and the Department of Justice announced plans to reform the police department and address law enforcement's unconstitutional and dangerous behavior. But what about looking into the prosecutor's office?

Surely, the prosecutor’s office does not have a monopoly on injustice. Some of the issue is rooted in the actual law, as laws are generally set up to give police a wide bandwidth of legally acceptable behavior, wider than the average person’s. The law is not written by prosecutors.

But it is prosecutors that decide when to charge, and what the charges will be. When police feel that there are no consequences to their actions, it is a surefire bet that someone somewhere isn't doing their job. In Cleveland, one of those persons is McGinty. The unjust handling of Rice's case is just one example of McGinty's cowardice in the face of police misconduct. Tamir Rice was 12 years old.

McGinty's not the only source of accountability, to be sure, but it is his job to get these cases to court and to get justice for victims. That's why taxpayers pay his salary.

To insult and degrade a dead victim’s family, to imply that they just want money simply because they are going to sue the police officer, is wildly out of line. Civil suits are common, especially in situations where police use excessive force. Tamir Rice was 12 years old.

Note that McGinty is up for election in November of 2016.

We know that police behavior fairly regularly leads to tragedy, as in Rice's case. Law enforcement brutality is an epic pandemic that requires deep and disruptive reform. But communities should not just be concerned about the police. They should also be concerned about the prosecutors.

Tamir Rice was 12 years old.