(CNN) — The police officer who shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice is speaking out for the first time, more than a year after the shooting.
In a signed statement given to investigators and released by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office Tuesday, Cleveland Police Officer Timothy Loehmann doesn’t mention Tamir by name.
He says he saw a suspect “pick up an object and stick it down in his waistband” as he arrived outside a Cleveland recreation center with his partner on November 22, 2014. He says he yelled “show me your hands” as loudly as he could. And he says he thought the suspect “appeared to be over 18 years old and about 185 pounds” and was pulling out a real gun.
“With his hands pulling the gun out and his elbow coming up, I knew it was a gun and it was coming out. I saw the weapon in his hands coming out of his waistband and the threat to my partner and myself was real and active,” Loehmann wrote in the statement, which was dated Monday.
The officer says he fired two shots toward the gun, based on his training.
In addition to Loehmann’s statement, the office of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty released a statement from Loehmann’s partner, who also says he believed the gun was real and that the person waving it was an adult.
The November 2014 shooting sparked controversy given Tamir’s age, the amount of time before the officer shot the boy and the fact that Tamir had a gun that fired pellets, not bullets.
It also came as protests grew over police-involved shootings of unarmed African-American men.
The boy’s family has called for a special prosecutor to take over the case, alleging that the county prosecutor has shown himself to be biased in favor of police.
Previous documents released by the prosecutor’s office have included expert assessments that the officer’s decision to shoot the boy was reasonable.
In a statement accompanying the officers’ accounts Tuesday, prosecutors said they were being released “in keeping with our determination to be as transparent as possible in this and other police use of fatal deadly force cases.”
“The investigation is continuing,” McGinty said in a statement, “and ultimately the grand jury will make its decision based on all the evidence.”
CNN’s Steve Almasy and Rashard Rose contributed to this report.
