Activists want LeBron James to show solidarity with Tamir Rice

In 2014, the 12-year-old was shot and killed by white officer Timothy Loehmann. On Monday, he and fellow patrolman Frank Garmback were absolved of the criminal charges against them.

“The evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police,” Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said at a news conference Monday, before calling Tamir’s death “horrible, unfortunate and regrettable, but not by the law that binds us a crime.”

Following the decision, a Twitter campaign, led by social justice activisit and writer Tariq Toure, has surfaced begging James, arguably the most influential figure in Ohio, to stop playing basketball until the Department of Justice “imprisons the murderers of Tamir Rice.”

James has been silent on the matter, though he has worn hoodies and “I can’t breathe” T-shirts in support of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, two young black men who were killed by white police officers.

“Our families are losing loved ones,” James told Cleveland.com in 2014 after Tamir’s death, though he never specifically mentioned him. “I’m not pointing the blame at anybody that’s making it happen. In society, we’ve come a long way, but it just goes to show how much further we still have to go.”

The #NoJusticeNoLebron campaign has split Twitter into two camps: those who think James has an obligation as a professional athlete to take a stand, and those who think that is thrusting too much pressure onto one man’s shoulders.

Some pointed to the college football players who helped force out University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe earlier this year, while others went as far as to call James cowardly compared to boxer Muhammad Ali, who famously refused to be drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War.

At least one Twitter user pointed out that the debate over whether James should get involved distracts from the injustice in question.