In the two years since Jayland Walker was killed by Akron police officers, voters put in place a civilian police oversight system that hired an independent police auditor, Anthony Finnell, tasked with investigating use-of-force incidents by police.
Finnell has produced three reports that are critical of the Akron Police Department’s use of force — these reports went to the mayor’s office, police department and city council.
So far, Finnell says, there have been no official responses to any of the reports or any action taken based on his recommendations. As far as he knows, none of the three entities to which he is required to send his reports has taken any action or indicated a position on his findings.
There is also no requirement that there be any response, based on the charter amendment passed by Akron voters that established the Citizens’ Police Oversight Board.
What happens next for the oversight system?
The mayor, police department, and city council aren’t actually required to do anything in response to issues of police misconduct and policy brought to them by the CPOB and the independent police auditor. City decision makers don’t have to adopt any recommended changes or say whether they agree or disagree — they don’t have to respond in any way. They don’t have to read the reports, either.
“As far as what the next steps are, that’s where everything is up in the air because the charter doesn’t address the next steps,” Finnell said. “The charter talks about recommending policy changes, but it doesn’t talk about what’s to be done after those recommendations are made.”
More than two months have passed since Finnell’s first report was issued. The report is deeply critical of the officers involved in the controversial Dierra Fields case, which was first reported by Signal Akron.
In January, Fields was body slammed in her home by an Akron police officer and charged with resisting arrest and obstructing official business. A jury found her not guilty on both charges two weeks ago.
In April, shortly after Signal Akron reported on the case, Finnell called for an investigation into both the officer who body slammed and arrested Fields and the sergeant who witnessed it and didn’t intervene. He also challenged the department’s use-of-force investigation that found the body slam to be reasonable. There were no grounds, legally called no probable cause, for her arrest, he said.
It was his office’s first rebuke of the department since the oversight system was created. It came less than a month after the Citizens’ Police Oversight Board hired him.
Since then, Finnell has heard nothing back, including from the APD, which did not respond to a request for an interview.
Malik: Auditor’s reports are meant to provide feedback and an independent perspective
The CPOB, during its May 15 meeting, passed a resolution requesting Mayor Shammas Malik and Akron City Council to respond to Finnell’s April 18 report within 30 days. That deadline, legally unenforceable, came and went without a response.
“That really is the extent of what we can do,” CPOB member Bob Gippin told Signal Akron about the resolution.
In late May, Finnell also issued a report calling out Akron police supervisors for clearing recently fired officer Ryan Westlake of wrongdoing in use-of-force cases that occurred prior to an April 1 incident where he shot a 15-year-old in the hand. Finnell recommended Westlake’s supervisors be investigated for not properly supervising him.
He also issued a report suggesting the APD’s use-of-force policy about striking people in the head should be re-examined.
Finnell said he thinks “people are so quick to get something established that they didn’t think it all the way through” and create some sort of rule requiring a response within a certain timeframe, which he said should be, “45, 60 days at most.” He said officials should be required to tell him if they adopt the recommendations he suggests or say publicly why they disagree with them, which would then trigger “additional conversations in public” and between him and the police chief.
“The mayor’s office needs to make a decision on how that process will work – they have to make a decision on what their process will look like and make it public,” he said.
Malik, one of the architects of the ballot measure that created the oversight system while he was on City Council in 2022, told Signal Akron that the lack of any enforceability mechanism in the oversight system is intentional feature, not a bug. He’ll eventually respond to Finnell’s reports, he said, but the reports are just feedback.
“The auditor is not the one making policy, the auditor is not the one making decisions or issuing disciplinary judgments,” Malik said. The purpose of the CPOB and auditor, he said, is “not to create an alternative management structure for the police department” but rather to provide an independent perspective that elected officials can consider when making decisions, if they so choose.
City Council’s unclear role
In addition to the mayor’s office and police department, the city charter requires that the CPOB and auditor’s reports of alleged police misconduct be sent to Akron City Council. Council President Margo Sommerville told Signal Akron this week she’s not sure where council fits in the process.
Credit: (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)
“We have been in conversation with the law department about what is council’s role once we’ve received those reports from the auditor,” she said. Malik’s “law department has made it clear to us that the charter language does not give council a role.”
Sommerville said Malik could and should have introduced a ballot measure to codify response requirements to the reports. “It would have been nice if there was language giving the mayor’s office or police so many days to respond to these reports, but none of that is spelled out,” she said.
“At the end of the day, it really is the mayor with the authority of the administrative power to implement those recommendations that the auditor brings forth,” she said. “Council doesn’t even have the administrative authority to do that. The only concern that I do have is that I don’t want us to have a shelf full of reports that just sit there.”
Malik explained his law department’s interpretation that City Council doesn’t have a role is more nuanced than was stated. It’s “more of an indirect role,” he said, and it’s “entirely valid” for council members to publicly express opinions either way on the findings and invite the auditor and CPOB members to speak at meetings.
The need to hammer out a process
While Finnell has issued three public reports since April without receiving a response from the mayor’s office, Malik refutes the idea that they will just pile up and not be addressed.
“The goal is not to have reports or anything that are just put on the shelf,” the mayor said on Wednesday. “There would be no value to that. We are looking through what that process would look like in terms of following up and responding to reports that are issued. We’ve had a number of internal meetings. We had one yesterday.
“We’re working on getting with Mr. Finnell and his team and really sitting down and hammering out a process that we think will work for everybody, that provides us enough time to review things, look at it, and create some manageable expectations in terms of the workload,” Malik said.
Signal Akron asked Malik what should happen if a hypothetical mayor were to completely ignore reports and recommendations from the auditor and the CPOB.
“That is why we have elections,” the mayor answered.
Finnell also told Signal Akron that elections may be the method necessary to change the system.
“At the end of the day, it’s up to the community to determine if it’s an acceptable process,” Finnell said. “From my perspective, I’ve met the requirements of my office, I’ve done what the charter permits me to do. It’s really up to the public to stay informed, and I can keep them informed as to the progress and status of my recommendations, which I plan to do. The public has to say, ‘Now what’s next?’ I can’t make the chief or anyone else do anything. I can only present my findings and initiate conversations.”
How can people weigh in if they are displeased?
“Exactly the way the public stepped up to vote for and approve Issue 10,” Finnell said. “The public needs to understand that what they voted for isn’t complete yet.”
