Akron residents expressed concerns about the police department’s policies and interactions with the public in a community meeting Thursday night.
About 70 people met at the Ed Davis Community Center in the Sherbondy Hill neighborhood just days ahead of an expected city council vote on whether to conduct an external review of the department’s use-of-force policy.
The proposal from Mayor Shammas Malik would authorize the city to spend $768,000 to hire a consulting team led by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The team would review the policy, gather input from officials and community members and suggest changes, according to the proposal.
Some council members, including At-Large Councilmember Eric Garrett, who led the meeting, have expressed concern about the cost.
"I think we can do it ourselves," Garrett said. "There's so many people in his department. Why can't they get in there and figure it out and work with the police chief ... to do it?"
Keysha Myers, the city's deputy police auditor, gave a presentation about the current procedures during the meeting. Myers and other city leaders then took questions and comments from the audience.
“We want to know what recommendations the community may have, what ways they feel like they’ve been impacted by the current policy and get that data so that when there is a review, if it passes, we can bring that data to the table,” Myers said.
During the question-and-answer portion, residents expressed their opinions about the culture of the Akron Police Department and officers’ relationship with the community.
Several family members of individuals fatally shot by police were in attendance, including the family of 15-year-old Jazmir Tucker who was killed on Thanksgiving, and the family of Michael Jones, who was killed while driving a U-Haul in August 2024.
Tiara Chavis, Jones’ daughter, wants to see more accountability when officers use deadly force, she said. She wants the city to do away with placing officers on paid administrative leave after a shooting.
“When they’re on paid leave, where does that leave the family? You know, we get time off from work, you know, but at the end of the day we’re still grieving and they can still go on with their daily life,” she said.
Instead, she’d like the leave to be unpaid, or for the officer involved to be terminated, she added.
“Let them feel how the families are feeling, that are still grieving after the funerals, after the balloon releases or what have you that [people] put together,” she said.
Duane Strong, a resident of West Akron, said he served in the military. In combat, members carried a card that clearly outlined the military's code of conduct, he said.
"It's not this difficult. It's the culture that's allowing the police officers to do what they're doing," Strong. "This is too doggone easy for us to be having to go through some crap like this to tell police officers what they should and should not do. It's not that hard."
City leaders, including City Council President Margo Sommerville, talked about other avenues of police reform.
Under the department’s current contract, officer assignments are determined through a bidding process, where more senior officers often bid out of overnight shifts, Sommerville said. That means less experienced officers may be the ones often responding to higher-risk incidents, she said.
"When things happen in our neighborhood, guess what? It's after midnight. And after midnight, nine times out of 10, it's going to be two officers who are white that are going to show up at that scene, and that's when sometimes things take a deadly turn because of their own unconscious biases," Sommerville said.
The mayor is currently negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the union. Sommerville encouraged the meeting attendees to reach out to Malik and ask for the bidding process to be changed.
Although Akron’s police auditor Anthony Finnell was not available to attend the forum, he has previously called for changes to the use-of-force policy in some of his reports last year.
The department’s procedures concerning conducted electrical weapons, CEWs, like Tasers, need to be expanded, he said in an October 2024 report. The policy also does not include national best practices and standards, he added.
He’s also raised concerns over the department’s use of punching during arrests.
“Right now, officers are, in my opinion, just going to punches way too fast, and for nonviolent offenses,” Finnell told Ideastream Public Media in October 2024, after an Akron officer was placed on paid administrative leave for punching a teenager in the head.
Another meeting on the use-of-force policy will be held Wednesday, Jan. 22 at the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corporation on Archwood Avenue.
City council is expected to take a vote on the mayor’s proposal at its next meeting on Monday, Jan. 13.
