Attorneys for the family of Jazmir Tucker repeatedly criticized Akron’s mayor and police department leadership for the death of the 15-year-old last Thanksgiving night. They said the teen’s death could have been avoided if officers had better training on de-escalation and constitutional policing.
“When you train officers like combat soldiers, you get combat responses,” attorney Robert Gresham said about Officer Davon Fields during a Tuesday morning press conference. Fields is a military veteran whose police training was primarily focused on SWAT tactics and weaponry in the years before he shot the fleeing teenager in the back with a high-powered rifle.
The attorney made the comments surrounded by Tucker’s family the day after filing a civil rights lawsuit against Fields, the officer’s partner that night, police supervisors, Akron Police Chief Brian Harding, Akron Mayor Shammas Malik and the City of Akron.
“When the city fails to correct the culture of each shooting, you get repeat tragedies. … The city must decide if it wants to keep repeating these tragedies or if it wants to change directions and protect life,” Gresham said.
Attorney Stanley Jackson said the shooting and the perceived inaction on cultural shifts within the police department indicated a “failure” of Malik’s tenure because he campaigned on a public safety platform that included police accountability and training measures.
The attorneys emphasized the police shooting of an unarmed man outside of an Ellet bar earlier this month as an indication that the city is not addressing the issues that led to Tucker’s killing.
“Mayor: If you want to be the mayor you sought to be, then make those changes,” Jackson said. “Because you didn’t and you thought you had time, Jazmir lost his life. You are responsible for that, there’s no other way around that.”
The mayor’s office declined to address the attorneys’ comments, citing a practice of not commenting on open litigation.
Tucker’s family and their lawyers are demanding that the department institute mandatory de-escalation and constitutional use-of-force training, restrict the use of rifles for foot pursuits, allow for “real civilian oversight” of the department with subpoena power for investigations and discipline for officers who don’t activate their body cameras.
“And,” Gresham said of the demands, “I’m talking to the mayor now: Leadership willing to acknowledge the harm.”
Little progress on systemic changes for Akron Police
Malik has long said systemic police reform has been one of his priorities, but he has introduced few of the changes sought by civil rights and civilian oversight advocates.
Weeks before Tucker was killed, and amid criticism for backing the police department’s approval of Officer Thomas Shoemaker body slamming a woman inside her home, the mayor pledged a review of the APD’s use-of-force policies that he said prevented the department from disciplining officers in many instances.
In the weeks after the shooting, Malik proposed a potential $768,000 contract with New York and Chicago-based consultants, but Akron City Council balked at the price tag and non-competitive selection process. The mayor’s office eventually landed on a firm to review the policy at less than half the price, in conjunction with the University Akron, but only selected the firm two months ago. That review is ongoing.
The mayor’s office has regularly drawn ire from Independent Police Auditor Anthony Finnell for not quickly or meaningfully responding to reports of police misconduct that the auditor’s office investigates and the Citizens’ Police Oversight Board oversees and votes on. Under a law Akron voters approved in 2022, which Malik helped write as a City Council member before his election to mayor, the mayor’s office has no legal obligation to acknowledge the CPOB or auditor.
Civilian oversight advocates were also upset with the mayor’s office for giving significant raises and bonuses to Akron police officers in its new collective bargaining agreement without also implementing any significant accountability measures and no provisions acknowledging the existence of and a role for the CPOB and police auditor’s office.
‘He didn’t deserve this’
Many of Tucker’s relatives teared up during the press conference — his mother, Ashley Greene, did not want to speak.
Efrem Frazier, Tucker’s great-uncle, stood at a podium inside the Remedy Church (which is taking over the South High Street church building previously occupied by Burning Bush Church) and passionately called for reforms for the department in the wake of Tucker’s killing.
“Change is most definitely needed — you can’t run around in a police state,” he said. “The way things are going around here, you have to investigate before you shoot, you can’t just come out guns blazing when you get a call.”
Frazier, amid tears, reflected on how his great-nephew was always quick to help people and how much he loved his family and how much they loved him. He recalled making pizza with Tucker and his twin just days before the shooting.
“It’s the simple things that matter,” Frazier said. “This was not someone who hated [people] — this was a 15-year-old boy who loved his grandmother, who loved his mother, who loved his brother. He didn’t deserve this, and now we have to go through life without the 15-year-old who had so much to give.”