A Firestone Community Learning Center student was crying one afternoon when a school resource officer the girl had gotten to know and a mentor in an afterschool program stepped in to check on her.
“They made me laugh, cheered me up,” she said of the pair. “They were both just hysterical. I was comfortable. I trusted them both. I never would’ve thought something like that would happen.”
The “that” the student refers to is an Oct. 16 incident at the high school that has focused attention on the role of police officers in Akron’s public schools. Zachary McCormick, the school resource officer the girl had befriended, punched a 16-year-old student multiple times in the head after that student evaded metal detectors at the school’s entrance.
After he set off the detectors, the student attempted to push his way past McCormick and another police officer.
Both officers are members of the Akron Police Department.
Signal Akron talked to several Firestone students about their reactions to the event, which was still being discussed at school more than a week later. Some of them witnessed the incident, some knew the student who was struck, some were supporters of school resource officers and of McCormick specifically.
All agreed a clear line was crossed.
“You don’t punch a child,” said the girl, a junior. “I don’t think you should be put in a high school building if you can’t handle yourself accordingly.”
Signal Akron is not naming any of the students in this article to protect them from being identified with the event in the future.
The student McCormick punched told Signal Akron in an interview he was trying to bring his phone into the building to listen to music that morning; phones are not allowed in school. He was not carrying any kind of weapon. The student was arrested — the charges have since been dropped, but they can be refiled.
The incident was caught on school surveillance video. Following the incident, neither McCormick nor a second officer who was working for the district on a contract basis are employed at Firestone or elsewhere in Akron Public Schools.
“I really liked him,” the girl said of McCormick. “I would’ve never expected that type of behavior from him.”
The girl said McCormick was quiet and seemed like a sweet person. As she heard about what happened, she said her first thought was hope that it wasn’t McCormick who had thrown the punches.
“I guess I just can’t trust my judgment on people,” she said. “It really hurt my heart.”
Incident caught on school surveillance video
In the video of the incident that was released by Akron Public Schools, the scuffle began when the student tried to force his way through the officers after being turned back toward the metal detectors several times.
The student pushed at the officers — a reaction his mother described as a fight-or-flight response — because, she said, the officers never explained to her son that he was being arrested. There is no audio on the recording, but in an incident report he filed, McCormick said he told the student he was under arrest after he pushed and shoved McCormick and tried to get past him into the school.
The video shows the officers grabbing both of the student’s arms; one officer falls as he tries to bring the student to the ground. The student is then pushed to his knees by the officers; he stands again with one officer on each side. In his report, McCormick said he was fearful that the student might have a weapon and would be able to reach it if his arms were free.
After the teen stands, McCormick punches him three times in the back of the head —the three fall to the ground. In the report, McCoormick said he did so because the officers and the student had already been struggling for 25 seconds. He was worried that the officers could become tired and the scuffle could expand to other students if it was not contained.
“I threw three punches to the sides of [the student’s] head with my right hand and with a closed fist,” the report read. “The punches were thrown so that we could gain physical control of [the student].”
McCormick appears to punch him at least once more after the teenager is on the ground. The student is then handcuffed, turned on his side and patted down.
Firestone student after use-of-force incident: ‘It could’ve been me’
Another Firestone junior was sitting near the school’s security desk that morning when, he said, he heard the principal’s radio go off then saw her escort the student back to the metal detectors.
The student who witnessed the incident watched as the metal detector beeped and the 16-year-old tried to walk into school anyway. The student described watching two officers, including McCormick, try to take his classmate down. He was flustered, the witness said.
The teen said he immediately thought McCormick’s action was “unnecessary,” but he didn’t think anyone outside the school would care.
“The gravity of the situation did not sink in until it was posted by the mayor,” he said of Akron Mayor Shammas Malik, who held a press conference the following Monday, in part to respond to questions about what had happened at Firestone.
“It makes no sense as a grown man. That’s a student.”
The junior who was sitting at the security desk said he had a “surface” relationship with the school resource officer — they often greeted each other, and McCormick once commented on a military vest the student, a self-described fashion icon, thrifted and wore to school. He’d seen the officer laugh and joke with other students.
But McCormick could also be quick to use pepper spray on students, the student said. A Sept. 26 incident report McCormick filled out regarding a use-of-force incident said he “deployed pepper spray” to break up a fight between two 14-year-old girls who were swinging at each other. The fight ended once the pepper spray was used, he wrote, and one student was treated by the school nurse.
McCormick’s personnel file, obtained through a public records request, shows three additional uses of pepper spray at schools this year. McCormick said in incident reports that he used pepper spray to break up a “riot” in February at East Community Learning Center, where he was a school resource officer; a large group fight at Firestone in April; and a May fight at Firestone among several students. The September incident was not included in the reports Signal Akron received.
A spokesperson for the Akron Police Department did not respond to a phone call and an email Friday seeking a response to students’ concerns about McCormick’s actions at Firestone or a follow-up email Monday.
Despite the officers’ struggle to get the teen to the ground, the student who witnessed the altercation said it made “no sense” that the interaction progressed the way it did. McCormick, the student said, should have acted differently — by patting the student down, if necessary, and removing him from the situation — because the student had already gone through the metal detectors multiple times.
“That was a phone away from being me,” the student witness said. “It could’ve been me or anybody else. … It’s a situation that could have been prevented.”
‘We’re all still so surprised’
A senior student was in the cafeteria when he heard a ruckus. So he headed back to the metal detectors, arriving in time to see the student being punched in the head — something he described as “crazy” and “surreal.”
“You see stuff like it on TV. To see it in person is next level,” that student said. “We’re all still so surprised by it.”
The senior said he’d been nearby when McCormick used pepper spray to diffuse situations “a few times.” The student said it burned his skin and throat, but the spray did little to actually break up fights — people with rushing adrenaline often don’t feel the effects, he said.
“He just always did the most,” the senior said.
The student said he’s had positive interactions with other school resource officers, including a female resource officer who he said was adept at using “words to calm someone down instead of us[ing] force to calm someone down.”
“She was great,” he said. “When there were situations, she would know how to diffuse the situations without slamming us on our necks. … Not all of the resource officers are bad. It was him.”
The senior said he had never had direct interaction with McCormick, but seeing him interact with others confirmed for him that the officer didn’t seem to know how to communicate with high schoolers.
The tension of the incident has lingered and made him feel on edge, he said.
“One of our peers,” he said, “he’s being hurt by someone who’s supposed to be protecting us.”
