"According to a 2016 GQ article about the case, the toy gun in question was an Airsoft pellet gun, which Rice got from a friend. His friend's dad had purchased the gun, a replica of a Colt M1911 semi-automatic, from Walmart. The Airsoft pellet gun typically has an orange tip on the barrel, but Rice's friend took the toy gun apart to fix it at some point when it wasn't working, and was unable to get the the orange piece back on."
So, the toy gun looked like the real thing and the cops had no way to know it was a toy.
Here's the difference:
"According to a 2016 GQ article about the case, the toy gun in question was an Airsoft pellet gun, which Rice got from a friend. His friend's dad had purchased the gun, a replica of a Colt M1911 semi-automatic, from Walmart. The Airsoft pellet gun typically has an orange tip on the barrel, but Rice's friend took the toy gun apart to fix it at some point when it wasn't working, and was unable to get the the orange piece back on."
So, the toy gun looked like the real thing and the cops had no way to know it was a toy.
https://www.newsweek.com/tamir-rice-police-brutality-toy-gun-720120