CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland City Council on Monday will consider asking the Justice Department to re-open the investigation into Tamir Rice’s death.

Councilman Kevin Conwell will introduce legislation that would also offer the Council’s support for a letter that four Ohio congressional members sent last month asking U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland to re-examine the case.

The surprise move by Council comes amid growing pressure for federal authorities to look again at the police shooting of the 12-year-old boy in 2014. At the same time, the officer who shot him continues his legal efforts to return to the Cleveland police force.

“I think everyone has always wanted the federal government to look at this case,” Councilman Blaine Griffin said. “This isn’t new. It is something that all of us have wanted.”

Conwell’s legislation seeks to support an investigation into “the police shooting and killing of Tamir Rice.” Conwell could not be reached for comment.

Last month, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and House members Tim Ryan, Joyce Beatty and Marcy Kaptur wrote to Garland and urged federal investigators to get involved in the case. Also last month, attorneys for Tamir’s family asked Garland to convene a grand jury.

“Justice delayed is justice denied, and accountability for Tamir Rice’s death has been delayed for more than six years,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote. “Therefore, we strongly support the request of Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir, that DOJ re-open its investigation into her son’s case.”

Attorneys for the boy’s family said the Justice Department under then-President Obama opened an investigation into the shooting. That, however, was not completed by the end of Obama’s term, and the Trump administration “abruptly closed the investigation in 2020, providing very little insight or information about the process,” the legislators wrote.

Attorneys for the Rice family said career prosecutors in the Justice Department sought to convene a grand jury in the case, but their work was hindered “by their political superiors.”

Then-officer Timothy Loehmann shot Tamir at Cudell Recreation Center on Nov. 22, 2014, while the boy was playing was an airsoft pellet gun. He died the next day. Loehmann was a rookie officer, a passenger in a car driven by a veteran training officer, Frank Garmback.

The two officers responded to a report of someone pointing a gun at people outside the recreation center. The caller told a 911 dispatcher that the gun looked fake, but that information was never relayed to the officers. Garmback was suspended 10 days, but an arbitrator reduced the suspension to five days.

The city of Cleveland did not fire Loehmann for any action involving Tamir, but rather for lying on his initial application about his reason for leaving his previous job at a suburban police department. The police union is fighting the firing.

Cleveland settled a federal civil-rights lawsuit with the boy’s family for $6 million. A Cuyahoga County grand jury in 2015 declined to indict the officers.