Cleveland Mayor Apologizes for Billing Family of Dead Boy

FILE- In this Nov. 25, 2014, file photo, Demonstrators in Cleveland during a protest over the police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, on Nov. 25, 2014. AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File

CLEVELAND—The mayor of Cleveland apologized Thursday to the family of Tamir Rice, a black 12-year-old boy fatally shot by a white Cleveland police officer, for the city having sent the administrator of the boy’s estate a “decedent’s last dying expense” claim of $500 for ambulance services.

Mayor Frank Jackson opened a City Hall news conference by saying, “We want to start off again apologizing to the Rice family if in fact this has added to any grief or pain they may have.”

Jackson said the claim was a “routine” matter but that supervisors should have been alerted to whom it involved and that it shouldn’t have been filed. He said the claim would be withdrawn.

“It was a mistake in terms of us flagging it, but not a mistake in terms of the legal process,” Jackson said.

This still image taken from a surveillance video played at a news conference held by Cleveland Police shows Cleveland police officers arriving at Cudell Park on a report of a man with a gun, on Nov. 26, 2014. Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer after he reportedly pulled a replica gun at the city park. AP Photo/Mark Duncan