Cleveland, December 17 (RHC)-- Medical examiners in the United States label the shooting death of a 12-year-old African American by Cleveland police as homicide.

Tamir Rice was shot once in the abdomen and the bullet damaged a major vein and his intestines, concluded an autopsy report by the Cuyahoga County medical examiner’s office. The cause of death was determined as "gunshot wound of the torso with injuries of major vessel, intestines, and pelvis."

The Black youth was fatally shot after a rookie police officer mistook his toy gun for a real one outside a Cleveland recreation center on November 22nd. Officer Timothy Loehmann shot the 12-year old, who was announced dead the next day.

A Cleveland police union official said the cops could not have known that the gun was fake and Tamir just a child. Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association president Jeff Follmer said the forces had no way of knowing that the gun Tamir was carrying was actually an airsoft one that shoots nonlethal plastic pellets.

The person who had called 911 had said someone was pointing a "probably fake" pistol and scaring everyone. The surveillance video released following the boy’s death showed that he was shot two seconds after the police vehicle pulled up beside him.

The U.S. has recently been confronted with a series of images of police brutality, where unarmed Black men have died after encounters with police. Based on a recent study by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, 313 Black people were killed in 2012 by police officers, private security guards and members of the public and in most cases, the perpetrator was not indicted.