Nearly a year and a half after Officer Davon Fields grabbed his rifle from a rack inside his cruiser and shot 15-year-old Jazmir Tucker in the back as he ran away, the City of Akron and the Akron Police Department still haven’t declared whether or not Fields violated any department policies related to the 2024 Thanksgiving night killing.
An internal policy investigation, initiated after a grand jury declined to indict Fields for murder 10 months after the killing, is “active and ongoing” more than seven months later, the mayor’s office recently told Signal Akron. Records detail that, in the meantime, Fields was tasked with investigating major crimes in the city immediately after the Oct. 2, 2025, grand jury.
On Thursday, the City of Akron published a lengthy report by policing consultants it commissioned to examine use of force in the APD. Among the many changes Akron needs, the Police Executive Research Forum report says, is that the department should stop initiating policy probes only after the completion of often-lengthy criminal investigations — a practice that still hasn’t produced an outcome in the Tucker case.
Waiting for state investigators and prosecutors to complete an often lengthy criminal process “delays corrective action where it is needed and, conversely, in cases where an officer acted appropriately, postpones returning a cleared officer to an assignment where they are needed,” the report says. (While the PERF report will likely change how the APD investigates policy investigations in the future, it won’t apply to the Davon Fields investigation and isn’t relevant to the outcome of investigations of actions that occurred before the recommendations go into effect.)
Supreme Court decisions detail the necessity for a strict separation of criminal and internal policy investigations of the same act by public employees like police officers. Because an employer can fire or otherwise punish an employee who refuses to answer questions in an internal investigation, criminal investigators cannot use information gleaned from compelled internal investigations without potentially violating Fifth Amendment constitutional rights.
But information that employers glean from voluntary criminal interviews is fair game for a policy investigation.
PERF believes that criminal and employment probes of Akron police shootings can happen concurrently because the criminal investigations are handled by a completely separate agency — the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation – meaning it’s less likely to be tainted by the city’s policy probe.
Fields returns to duty
Shortly after a grand jury declined to indict Fields for murder on October 2, 2025, Akron Mayor Shammas Malik and Brian Harding issued a joint statement declaring that they could now begin an internal investigation.
“Now that the criminal process has concluded,” Malik wrote in an emailed statement, “the Akron Police Department will conduct a thorough internal investigation into this incident to determine if any APD policies or procedures were violated, taking into consideration the evidence gathered by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.”
Records obtained by Signal Akron show that on the day of the grand jury decision, Harding sent Fields and his division an official notice that he was “cleared to return to duty” the next day. Fields spent more than 10 months on paid administrative leave during the criminal investigation, which is a standard practice after police shootings. He was told to report to the training division.
Other records show that Fields was quickly assigned to a patrol shift and that same month began working overtime shifts on the major crimes unit, responsible for investigating major felonies. In February, records show that Deputy Chief David Laughlin assigned Fields to a stint with the investigative subdivision on a controversial unit tasked with investigating drug and gun crimes.
Officers within the unit, known as SNUD, frequently appear in reports filed by Independent Police Auditor Anthony Finnell, who is often critical of pretextual and aggressive traffic stops, frequent uses of force, and potential constitutional violations. The February directive assigning Fields to the unit says that assignment will continue through May 24.
No records related to Fields investigation
While the mayor’s office said that an investigation of Fields is ongoing and the potential for findings of wrongdoing and discipline are still on the table, the city law department’s response to Signal Akron’s public records request gave no hint to any investigation existing.
Instead of providing the related records or citing a legal reason why existing records cannot be disclosed, the law department wrote, “The City of Akron does not maintain or possess a record responsive to your request” for the following records related to Fields since the Nov. 28, 2024, shooting:
- Any notice of disciplinary charges or findings.
- Any supervisor’s investigative report. The APD’s use-of-force policy requires that supervisors document “all investigative actions” and other details of the incident to assess whether the force was within policy. The law department did provide a supervisor’s report of another incident that Fields witnessed on Nov. 28, 2024.
- Any record of a “BlueTeam” report or entry. The APD uses the software for real-time recordkeeping of internal investigations.
- Any report from the Office of Professional Standards and Accountability, the APD’s version of internal affairs that investigates misconduct allegations.
The law department also denied Signal Akron’s request for “other formal records of policy investigations regarding Akron police officer Davon Fields initiated since November 2024,” claiming “the City of Akron cannot reasonably identify what public records are being requested.”
What the city could be looking for in the Fields investigation
If internal investigators are looking into the Tucker killing, they will center on the pre-PERF use-of-force policy detailing that use-of-force cases are investigated by supervisors to determine whether the incidents meet the “objectively reasonable” standard. Essentially, if force wouldn’t be considered a crime — and the threshold for criminal use of force is extremely high — it is acceptable under the policy.
Department procedures detailed that all use-of-force cases must be investigated by supervisors to determine whether the incidents meet the “objectively reasonable” standard.
Investigators could probe whether Fields violated the requirement of a “verbal warning of the imminent use of deadly force” when it’s “feasible to do so.” Fields said he never said anything to Tucker prior to shooting Tucker when he started running away after noticing the officer.
They could also probe the requirements to provide medical attention when, among other circumstances, the subject of the force “is incapable of communicating his or her well-being” or “becomes unconscious.” Body camera footage shows officers waiting more than seven minutes to approach the unresponsive teenager.
Investigators could also probe whether Fields violated the department’s “mobile recording device procedure,” which requires that officers activate their body cameras unless diverting their attention to do so would place them in immediate danger.
The investigation from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation details that Fields said he heard what he said were gun shots from a distance while he and his partner were in their cruiser. He then got up, grabbed his rifle from the rack between the front seats, and approached Tucker as the teen walked away in the distance.
Fields never activated his own camera — it was triggered automatically when police cruisers came to the area with their lights on. It came on too late to document what Fields saw or heard before he began firing at Tucker with his rifle.
PERF, in the report published Thursday, recommended that the APD adopt a much more explicit body camera policy to avoid any misinterpretation about when it is required.
“These requirements should include a clearly enumerated list of circumstances in which activation is compulsory and phrasing such as ‘must be activated at the first reasonable opportunity,’” the report states. “Doing so will emphasize the importance of consistent BWC use, improve accountability, and reduce preventable failures to record.”
The city says it is looking into the issue.
