Over the past few decades, cities across Ohio have created citizen police oversight boards — often after high profile shootings of civilians — to try to increase accountability and restore community trust in police.
One recent example is in Akron. The city created its citizen police oversight board last year, after police fatally shot a 25-year-old Black man, Jayland Walker, more than 40 times.
But the board has struggled since its creation to investigate complaints from citizens.
Ideastream Public Media’s Anna Huntsman covers Akron city government. She joined the Ohio Newsroom to explain the challenges Akron’s board is facing and just how effective Ohio’s citizen police oversight boards can be.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
On how citizen police oversight boards work
“A civilian oversight board is an independent body providing some sort of oversight over a city's police department. Responsibilities typically include taking complaints from citizens about their interactions with police, looking into use of force instances, issuing policy recommendations about how the department can improve, and in some cases, the boards can actually investigate misconduct complaints themselves. The scope of the power these boards have varies by city.”
On how widespread these boards are in Ohio
“At this point, most of the state's major cities have citizen police oversight boards:
- Cincinnati formed a citizen police oversight board after a police shooting back in the early 2000s.
- Cleveland has two different boards: a civilian oversight board and a police commission. One takes complaints from citizens. The other actually has authority over discipline.
- Columbus created a board in 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
- Akron is [one of] the most recent cities to create a board. Voters created this one through a charter amendment passed in 2022, in the aftermath of the Jayland Walker shooting.”
On Akron’s citizen police oversight board’s early struggles
“[Akron’s citizen police oversight board] has had a bumpy road since the beginning. It took a while for the board to even get seated after the charter amendment was approved because there was controversy in city council over one of the candidates that was nominated.
“Then, when they finally were seated, they had to do the grunt work of starting a new board. And there was controversy once again over how much power they really had. They wanted to investigate complaints and use of force instances at the same time as the police department's internal affairs unit. But the obstacle here is the city and the police union have a collective bargaining agreement. Basically, the police union said the internal affairs unit is the only body that can conduct these investigations. So city council ended up passing a version of rules that said the citizen police oversight board could still investigate, but it has to wait until the internal affairs unit investigation is done.”
On whether these challenges are unique to Akron
“I spoke with Cameron McEllhiney, the executive director of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE). She's aware of boards across the country, including in Ohio, and she said they often have the same challenges. Perhaps there are obstacles from the collective bargaining agreement or there's a lack of political will. There can be changes in funding or a lack of training for board members. So McEllhiney says the boards might have small victories here and there, but it can sometimes seem like they aren’t making progress.”
On the effectiveness of citizen police oversight boards in Ohio
“McEllhiney says it can take years for the community to really feel some change [from citizen police oversight boards]. That’s often because of external factors, like changes in elected officials or changes in funding. But she did say, in Ohio, in almost every jurisdiction that has civilian oversight over the police department, there’s more transparency and legitimacy in the complaint process, and there’s more trust in policing.”
On how Akron’s board is moving forward
“A few months ago, [Akron’s citizen police oversight board] hired a police auditor who is tasked with doing those investigations that I talked about. His name is Anthony Finnell, and he has actually already done some reports about use of force instances. He did those investigations after the internal affairs unit. And I have to tell you, there have been a few times when he disagreed with what the [internal affairs unit] ruled.
“He said there have been certain uses of force that were not objectively reasonable. For example, an officer body slammed a woman during an arrest. In another case, an officer pushed somebody into his police car when they were already handcuffed. So, he is starting to say that this could be a systemic issue, and he's even called for [police] supervisors to be investigated.”
