“All I’m going to say right now: He withdrew his application,” Tioga Borough Council President Steve Hazlett told CNN. Hazlett then clarified that by “application” he meant Loehmann’s position with the Tioga Borough Police Department. Loehmann had been sworn into office earlier that week by Mayor David Wilcox, Hazlett said. CNN has reached out to an attorney for Wilcox and Loehmann. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Wilcox said he did not know Loehmann’s background, as hiring and firing the lone borough officer is the responsibility of the city council, News 5 reported. Wilcox attended Loehmann’s interview — in which the former’s time was discussed officer in Cleveland, though his involvement in Rice’s death was not mentioned — after which Loehmann was “unanimously approved” by the board, News 5 reported. “I was not allowed to get his resume or look into his background,” the mayor was quoted as saying by News 5. Other city officials did not respond to CNN’s questions about Loehmann’s employment history. On Nov. 22, 2014, Loehmann fatally shot Tamir Rice at a playground three seconds after he got out of his patrol car, CNN previously reported. At the time he was shot, Rice was holding a toy replica gun. A witness called 911, reporting that a person brandishing a firearm was in a park. The caller said the firearm was likely fake — but that information was not relayed to the officers who were dispatched. Loehmann was a trainee at the time. An Ohio grand jury declined to indict the officers criminally in 2015. Loehmann was eventually fired in 2017 — not for the shooting, but because investigators found he had not been truthful about his employment history when he applied for the job.
