CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland City Council members on Monday night said they are deeply disturbed by the police shooting that took the life of 12-year-old Tamir Rice outside of the Cudell Recreation Center Saturday afternoon.

Many urged the community, however, to have patience and faith in the system to determine whether the Cleveland police officer was acting in self-defense when he opened fire on the boy, who was carrying what turned out to be a pellet gun.

"Perhaps, after our analysis, we learn that the police officer really did fear for his life and did everything right under the circumstances," Councilman Jeffrey Johnson said during the miscellaneous portion of the meeting. "But there is something fundamentally broken in our system when a young man can have a legal BB gun, and by the end of that day be killed by a Cleveland police officer."

Councilwoman Dona Brady said she, too, would reserve judgment on the officer's actions until an internal investigation and a grand jury review conclude. She added that police might have known that Tamir did not pose a real threat had the city not eliminated police mini-stations that embedded officers in the community.

"I found out that everyone knew Tamir," Brady said. "Everyone knew him, except the police. ... If there were an officer assigned to a mini-station in Cudell, that officer would have been aware that this young man was a harmless 12-year-old."

Councilman Michael Polensek told his colleagues that council "can't legislate our way out of this problem." He reminded them that ordinances already were on the books, passed decades ago, prohibiting a person from brandishing a toy or replica firearm in the presence of a law enforcement officer.

Councilman Terrell Pruitt said that earlier Monday, a student at John F. Kennedy High School was caught carrying a fake gun. He said the city must find a way to break the gun culture among urban youth and "focus on the causes, rather than the symptoms."

And Councilman Zack Reed said the controversy surrounding Tamir's death illustrates the immediate need for police body cameras, which are expected to appear on officers early next year.

He also added a red pin to dozens of others freckling a map of Cleveland, each representing a 2014 homicide. Reed held up a plastic container with only 14 pins left and wondered aloud whether, at the current pace, he would run out by year's end.