Amid concerns about racism and use-of-force incidents in the Akron Police Department, Akron is one step closer to hiring a new police chief.
Dozens of Akron residents expressed frustrations with the department at a town hall forum hosted by Mayor Shammas Malik Tuesday. It was the second of two forums to introduce the community to Acting Chief Brian Harding, the finalist for the job.
Residents brought up officer-involved shootings of Black males, including the fatal police shooting of Jayland Walker in 2022 and the recent shooting of 15-year-old Tavion Koonce-Williams, who was injured in the hand.
“There is no place for racism in the Akron Police Department and if that’s there, there needs to be consequences,” Harding said in his opening remarks. “As chief, if that happens, I plan on addressing it.”
Several residents asked how he planned to improve relations between the department and the Black community.
It starts with community engagement, Harding said.
“As we get to know each other and develop relationships with those individuals, we can continue to break down barriers that maybe can appear divisive initially upfront,” Harding said.
Judi Hill, president of the Akron chapter of the NAACP, asked what Harding would do differently than the previous chief, who tried to implement some community engagement strategies.
Harding would take an all-hands-on-deck approach, he said.
“It can’t just be the community engagement team or a handful of officers whose role is to engage. It needs to be the culture of the agency,” Harding said.
Hill and other residents called for better training in the department.
After the forum, Harding told Ideastream Public Media that this feedback stood out to him.
“How can we do more - make training very purposeful about community engagement, customer service?” Harding said. “I think it's continuing to share that message internally with our officers and continually training to those issues, making them aware of what the community wants and making sure they're crystal clear.”
Harding, a 28-year veteran of the police department, is the remaining candidate in the police chief search after Malik decided not to move forward with a second finalist, Deputy Chief Jesse Leeser.
After conducting interviews with both candidates, Malik said he did not “feel comfortable” with Leeser.
Malik told Ideastream Public Media that Leeser had expressed hesitation with the public engagement responsibilities of the job.
“I respect his service to the city. I communicated that to him in the interview. But for this role, it's a very public role. That was one of the factors that was involved in my decision,” Malik said.
Malik has been criticized for his decision to only consider internal candidates for the role due to the lack of diversity. Both Harding and Leeser are white.
According to the mayor, current city law prohibits him from considering external candidates, and he could not consider a less senior position since both deputy chiefs applied.
Malik intends to put a charter amendment before voters this fall that would allow for external hires.
Imokhai Okolo, a civil rights attorney who represents individuals in several recent use-of-force incidents, including Koonce-Williams, asked Harding if he, hypothetically, would withdraw his name from the search, continue as acting chief and reapply after the charter amendment has passed.
Harding said he would be “open” to that, but Malik said that’s not on the table.
“It was kind of a ‘gotcha’ question to him,” Malik told Ideastream. “It is my decision as to whether we need a permanent chief now or later, and I've been very clear about why I think that's a critical need for our priority to advance a lot of the reforms that I'm talking about.”
Harding plans to also focus on hiring and retaining officers and ensuring public safety across the city, he added.
