The Psychology of Racial Colorblindness

At 3:30 in the afternoon on November 22, 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice sat on a bench in a Cleveland-area park, holding a pellet gun. The plastic orange tip indicating that the gun was not real had been removed. Rice had been seen pointing the gun at passersby earlier in the day, prompting a concerned citizen to contact 911. The caller mistakenly described Rice as an adult, but clarified that it was unclear if the gun was real, or a toy. Officers Frank Garmback and Timothy Loehmann were the first respon- dents to the scene.