As sleet and rain began pouring down on a cold and dark Saturday afternoon in East Akron, relatives of Jazmir Tucker huddled under an umbrella outside the Joy Park Community Center to share memories of the 15-year-old killed by an Akron police officer in November.
“I’m Jazmir’s great-grandmother,” 82-year-old Dorothy Frazier said into a microphone as dozens of supporters and other relatives looked on. “I never thought, in the world, that Jaz would die before me. Jaz was my heart.”
Frazier reminisced about how she helped Jazmir’s mother, Ashley Green, her granddaughter, raise Jazmir and his twin brother, Amir. Frazier worked a night shift and Green worked during the day, and the two provided round-the-clock parenting for the kids.
“He was always there for me,” she said of her great-grandson, who regularly rode his bike to her house, volunteering to mow her yard in the summer and shovel snow in the winter. “… For that man to take Jaz away from me, it has put a big hole in me.”
Tucker was shot twice in the back and once in the arm by Akron Police Officer Davon Fields, killing the teenager at around 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving in front of Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts. Bullets from the officer’s assault-style rifle pierced his heart and other organs. In the moments before Tucker’s death, police said they heard the sounds of gunshots coming from a nearby parking lot and approached the teenager as he was walking near the school.
The teenager’s killing has led to outcry from many in Akron’s Black community, with regular protests at and outside of Akron City Council meetings and elsewhere in the city.
Event follows controversy over requirement to hire Akron police for security
Saturday’s gathering in the parking lot of the Joy Park followed days of friction between the City of Akron and the event’s organizers. The Akron branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation originally booked a room inside the community center for a general educational forum connected to Black History Month. After the group developed a relationship with Tucker’s family, they decided to shift the focus of the event to Tucker and his killing by an Akron police officer.
When city parks officials saw social media posts for the event – calling for “Justice for Jazmir” and to “End the War on Black America” – they cited “safety” concerns and required that organizers pay for two Akron police officers to provide security. When organizers and Tucker’s family raised issues with paying Akron police, the city pulled the permit and refunded their deposit.
“The family feels that having police in this situation is a unique threat to the safety of the environment because of the fact that police killed Jazmir Tucker,” PLS organizer Greg Levy told Signal Akron on Friday.
On Friday, after the outcry, the city said the group could keep the original permit without hiring Akron police so long as they hired security of some sort. Organizers and Tucker’s family decided to avoid the permitting issue – and shelter from Saturday’s storm – and held the event in the parking lot instead.
“It’s a blessing that you guys came out here to stand in this bad weather,” Frazier told the drenched and cold crowd on Saturday.
“The city, they don’t know how much they hurt all of us,” Connie Sutton said on the microphone about her great-nephew’s death. “They didn’t just hurt Ashley, they hurt the entire family, because Jaz meant a lot to our entire family. Whatever you wanted him to do, Jaz was there – no questions, no fussing, nothing.”
Levy spoke after members of Tucker’s family and used the opportunity to criticize the parks officials for believing the event was a security risk.
“That was wonderful,” he said. “The city is talking about how that’s dangerous – what’s dangerous about what’s happening here?”
