The Akron Police Department has quietly updated its internal policies about police shootings and now lists the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation as the default “preferred agency,” instead of its own detectives, to investigate after APD officers kill or seriously injure someone.
While the APD has regularly called on the BCI’s Crime Scene Unit to process scenes of police shootings, Chief Steve Mylett caught the ire of the police union in 2022 when he asked the state agency to conduct the entire investigation into Jayland Walker’s killing. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7 filed a grievance that alleged bringing in an outside agency violated its collective bargaining contract with the city because that work, it said, should have gone to APD detectives.
The BCI’s investigation did not lead to any charges against the eight police officers who fired 94 rounds at Walker, striking him 46 times, after a car chase and brief foot pursuit in June 2022. A grand jury declined to indict the officers in April 2023.
Is Akron closer to police accountability today compared to when Issue 10 passed? Read more here.
The FOP’s grievance against the city for using the BCI in the Walker investigation was “resolved” by both sides in October, according to a document obtained by Signal Akron, the same month the APD formalized its written policy to use the BCI going forward. According to the document, the FOP was able to review and provide input about the policy before it was implemented.
The resolution document said both sides – the FOP and the city – agreed on the following:
- That the city (the APD) can use the BCI “to perform work previously performed by Akron Police Division detectives related to the investigation of officer-involved shootings.”
- That the FOP maintains the BCI can’t do other other types of investigations for the APD and no other agency can investigate police shootings.
- That the city does not agree that the FOP’s grievance about the Jayland Walker investigation and a previous grievance from 2018 “have merit, procedurally, factually or legally.”
The police union resolved the grievance and formally allowed the APD to use the BCI because it would guarantee that no other outside agency conduct use-of-force investigations in the future, Akron FOP President Clay Cozart told Signal Akron.
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“We didn’t think the city had the right to bring in an independent outside agency, but we sat down and came to an agreement,” Cozart said. “We allowed that because it was BCI and they have all the training necessary to do it – we were not going to agree to have Summit County do it, we were not going to agree to have Cuyahoga Falls Police Department do it. They’re not as trained as BCI.”
The APD has been tightlipped about the change so far but, in a response to Signal Akron questions, Public Information Officer Michael Miller said, “The chief made the decision to ask BCI to investigate, which appears to be the standard moving forward and that, in part, adds a layer of independence and enhances transparency.”
Steve Irwin, press secretary for the Ohio Attorney General’s office, which oversees the BCI, said agencies such as the Columbus Police Department, Ohio State Highway Patrol, U.S. Marshals and others have formal “memorandum of understanding” agreements for the BCI to investigate officer-involved shootings. The APD does not yet have such an agreement. Per state law, the APD will still need to request that the BCI get involved.
