Akron Police Chief Brian Harding is a candidate for police chief of the Copley Township Police Department. Copley Township Police Chief Michael Mier retired in June after serving as chief since 1999.
After nearly three years at the helm of the APD and more than three decades in the only police department he’s worked for, rumors of Harding looking elsewhere had been spreading for weeks inside the APD’s headquarters and in Akron City Hall.
Copley Township Administrator Greg Tracey confirmed that it’s true.
“Brian Harding did apply for the position of Chief of Police for Copley Township and is under consideration for the position,” Tracey said in an email to Signal Akron. “The Township has partnered with the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police to conduct an assessment of candidates being considered for the position. We are hopeful to have someone selected by September.”
Harding’s application to Copley Township comes after a long-anticipated use-of-force review identified some significant issues in the department and as the mayor’s office was working to fire Officer Davon Fields and settle the lawsuit from the family of 15-year-old Jazmir Tucker, who Fields killed in 2024.
Copley Township has approximately 30 police officers compared to Akron’s 446 sworn police officers alongside 37 civilian staff members
The Akron mayor’s office declined to comment on Harding’s candidacy.
Harding’s potential exit comes as Deputy Chief Jesse Leeser, the co-finalist for the vacant chief job in 2024, announced his retirement from the department to APD personnel. Leeser also spent more than three decades working only for APD — he most recently oversaw the uniform subdivision.
Harding and Leeser were the only candidates for the vacant APD chief job in 2024 when Akron Mayor Shammas Malik, shortly after he was sworn in and amid a nationwide chief search, announced a controversial interpretation of city law that he said required him to consider only internal candidates for police leadership positions if two or more employees from the rank below applied for it.
Because Harding, then a deputy chief serving as interim police chief, and Leeser applied for the open position, Malik said he could not consider any external candidate or any other internal candidates. That left him with two white males vying for the chief’s role, amid growing criticism.
Malik and his advisory team decided, prior to a series of town hall-style meetings with the candidates, to move forward with only Harding.
Malik also appointed Harding to the full-time job instead of waiting for a potential ballot measure to change the city law that he said prevented him from a larger candidate pool.
If Harding were to leave the APD, the same interpretation of the hiring law would mean that if two of the three current deputy chiefs were to apply for it, they would be the only candidates under consideration.
Those three deputy chiefs are veterans Michael Miller, who oversees the Community Relations and Crime Prevention Subdivision, David Laughlin, who oversees the Investigative Subdivision, and Agostino Micozzi, who oversees the Services Subdivision.
