Tioga Borough, PA (WENY)-- The Tioga Borough Board held a special meeting tonight following the hire and then resignation of the only police officer in the town, the ex-Cleveland cop who shot and killed 12 year Tamir Rice in 2014. 

Loehmann was at the center of national controversy after fatally shooting the 12-year-old Cleveland boy. Loehmann was responding to a call of someone waving around a gun, and when he arrived on the scene, he shot Tamir Rice just seconds after arriving on scene. Afterward, it was discovered that Rice was carrying a pellet gun. The investigation into the shooting also revealed that the 911 caller told the dispatcher that the person waving a gun might be a child, and the gun could be fake.

Loehmann was fired from the Cleveland Police Department in 2017 for lying on his job application. He was not charged with the killing of Tamir Rice. However, the city of Cleveland agreed to pay the Rice family $6 million in a wrongful death suit.

 

The PA Attorney General said the Borough President broke the law hiring Loehmann as a police officer because a proper background check was not conducted on him.

Timothy Loehmann resigned on Thursday, July 7th as an officer for the borough. 

Alan Brooks councilman for Tioga Borough who ran the Tuesday night special meeting says since the resignation of Timothy Loehmann, the Borough President, a council member, the town's lawyer, and the code enforcer have all resigned.

Council member Holly Irwin read the resignation Loehmann submitted to the board.

"Since I have yet to start officially working for the borough I am withdrawing my application at this time. Thank you for the opportunity, Timothy Loehmann,"  Irwin said.

It was a packed house at this special board meeting.  Hundreds of residents packed the tiny borough building. It got so crowded they moved the meeting outside. However, shortly after the meeting, Brooks requested a motion to change the agenda to accept the additional resignations.  But not everyone on the board agreed.

"You want to let me finish," Brooks said.

"You cannot do that," Councilmember Bob Wheeler said. 

"You want to let me finish, let me finish," Brooks said.

"Okay go ahead! You should've had your stuff printed out and all set up," Wheeler said.

"There's no requirement that says I have to print anything up for you," Brooks said.

Wheeler did not agree with the change of motion and abruptly left the meeting. Residents in attendance clapped and yelled at Wheeler. Shouting, "You're leaving to break quorum so they can't vote on it, it's nothing but a game, you risked public safety by hiring Loehmann," one resident said!

Brooks said his motion was still on the table, regardless of council member Wheeler leaving.

"We are going to clean house we have some more cleaning to do but we are heading in the right direction, the police officer was immediate the rest of them if they were complicit they need to go also. If they knew about it, they are complicit in my mind," Brooks said.

Brooks believes Wheeler was trying to break the quorum and he expected that would happen.

"But to leave, they were trying to bust the quorum and that wasn't going to happen. I was already ready for that. We have only five members in office, you have to have three people present for a quorum we had three present," Brooks said.

Brooks explains one thing he would do differently is he should've never taken the word of the Borough President when it came to hiring Loehmann.

"I would not take their word for it. I would've double-checked that all of the checks were done. Just so that everyone knows my last words to them when I left the application process was I rather have no cop than a bad cop," Brooks said.

David Wilcox Mayor of the Borough agrees and says he will be more involved with the hiring process of the next officer moving forward.

"Absolutely I would expect after new council members come on and restructuring that I would be included in that process from start to finish," Wilcox said.

Mayor Wilcox says as far as the next steps the council will begin the recruiting process to hire a new officer. In addition to a new officer, he needs two new council members.