Nov. 4 Akron City Council meeting

Covered by Documenter Christina Brunson (see her notes here)

Mayor Shammas Malik received approval from Akron City Council Monday for the purchase of 42 body-worn cameras for the Akron Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, along with the uniformed officers of the Street Narcotics Uniform Detail (SNUD) unit. 

The total cost of the cameras and the three-year contract that accompanies them will be $122,183.  

These police units have not previously been equipped with body-worn cameras.  

The City’s Racial Equity Social Justice Taskforce, convened in 2020, recommended in its 2022 report that SWAT officers be equipped with body-worn cameras. 

“The legislation is a further step in our commitment to increasing trust between our community and our law enforcement officers,” Malik said in a news release. “These units do important and necessary work in our community and outfitting them with body-worn cameras helps ensure transparency.”  

Akron Police Chief Brian Harding said, “We plan to train the uniformed officers in these units in the coming months to ensure a seamless transition with the new equipment when it arrives.” 

Equipment could arrive this year

Expanding the body-worn camera program was part of the 2024 capital budget request passed by City Council in February. The total investment of $375,000 for the year. 

The equipment will be ordered from Axon Enterprises. APD and the city’s Law Department are working on updates to the body-worn camera policy. The aim is to protect confidential informants and undercover officers. 

The units could be outfitted with the cameras as early as the end of the year.  

The city and APD have released body-worn camera footage in several high profile cases over the past year. This includes video from a controversial body slam case involving an APD officer and a Kenmore resident in January. Akron’s independent police auditor has used reviews this year of body-worn camera footage when challenging the APD use-of-force policy.

Read Documenter Christina Brunson’s notes here:

Akron City Council – Council Meeting (remote option) 11_04_2024Download

Editor-in-Chief (she/her)
Zake has deep roots in Northeast Ohio journalism. She was the managing editor for multimedia and special projects at the Akron Beacon Journal, where she began work as a staff photographer in 1986. Over a 20-year career, Zake worked in a variety of roles across departments that all help inform her current role as Signal Akron's editor in chief. Most recently, she was a journalism professor and student media adviser at Kent State University, where she worked with the next generation of journalists to understand public policy, environmental reporting, data and solutions reporting. Among her accomplishments was the launch of the Kent State NewsLab, an experiential and collaborative news commons that connects student reporters with outside professional partners.

Akron Documenters trains and pays residents to document local government meetings with notes and live-tweet threads. We then make those meeting summaries available as a new public record.