The ACLU of Ohio and Tamir Rice’s mother, Samaria Rice, teamed up to make a booklet teaching children how to safely handle stops by police to carry on the name of her son.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Five years after a Cleveland police officer shot Tamir Rice dead, the boy’s mother and the American Civil Liberties Union have released a booklet in the boy’s name to guide children through the stress of police interactions.

The Tamir Rice Safety Handbook bears the boy’s favorite color of red on its cover, and his smiling photograph adorns its back above the epitaph “In loving memory of Tamir Rice.” His name and likeness bookend six pages of clear, simple text that show children and teenagers how to assert their rights in several possible scenarios, from being questioned on the way home from school to having police show up at your house.

The eight-page guide is available for download on the ACLU’s website, and at the bottom of this post. Physical copies will also be available at the foundation’s headquarters.

The booklet is a poignant and heavy reminder that children, particularly children of color, are dangerously exposed to the systemic failures of the American policing system that led to a 12-year-old boy’s death by a police-fired bullet.

And it keeps that boy’s name at the forefront of criminal justice activism in Cleveland and beyond.

“Black children often have to be adults,” ACLU Campaigns Manager Melekte Melaku, who worked on the booklet with former colleague Emma Keeshin and Tamir’s mother, Samaria Rice, said. “They have to navigate these encounters and have this information on hand in a split second where they might be scared of what’s happen next.

“We want to make sure we’re giving kids the tools that they need, while acknowledging that it’s not fair that young people have to walk around and fear for their safety like they still do in Cleveland,” Melaku said.

Samaria Rice approached the ACLU earlier this year with the idea to create a child-focused guide in the style of the organization’s “Know Your Rights” guides to teach a generation of children the rights that her son never was given a chance to assert.

“I told them to use colors for kids to be more welcoming, so they read it and make sure they read it with their parents,” Rice said in a recent interview with cleveland.com.

Rice said she wanted the guide to especially helpful for teenagers who are stopped by police while driving without their parents.

The cover includes a two-paragraph introduction that acknowledges that being stopped by the police is a stressful experience that, even when someone does everything right, can still go wrong.

“In any situation you can only control one thing — your own actions,” the cover says.

The first step is not to panic, the pamphlet says. It warns children to not run or try to resist arrest, and to keep their hands visible.

The booklet also includes specific instructions on whether teachers or other school officials are able to search backpacks and lockers, and a warning to children that school resource officers often share what children tell them with other officers, and often possess the same types of powers as regular police officers.

The bottom-line advice: if police stop you, first ask to speak to a parent or a guardian, to an attorney or both, and do say that you do not consent to a search of your backpack, cellphone, vehicle or home unless police show you they have a warrant signed by a judge.

Melaku said she hopes the booklet balances the delicate line between teaching children how to assert their rights while doing what they can not to escalate the situation.

One message the booklet is not meant to send is that Tamir did anything to warrant his death. He simply wasn’t given the chance to avoid it.

“The onus is on the Cleveland police for murdering a child in broad daylight,” Melaku said. “I do think young people who have the opportunity to de-escalate a situation could potentially prevent that situation from escalating further.”

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