November 19 update: Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Christine Croce ruled against Lt. Murphy’s attempt to take the captain’s promotional exam, the Akron Beacon Journal reports.
An Akron Police lieutenant is taking the City of Akron to court in order to stop a Nov. 19 captain’s promotional examination the city is not allowing him to take. He alleges the city’s decision is based on a policy that is disproportionately applied to minority candidates.
The complaint was filed in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas on Friday. By Tuesday evening — the day before the scheduled examination — the court docket indicateds a judge has not yet weighed in.
Lt. Michael Murphy was one of seven lieutenants who applied to take the promotional examination that the city scheduled in anticipation of four captain positions opening up in the next two years. Murphy, who is Black, was the only candidate whose application to take the exam was rejected. That means, without court intervention, he will not be eligible to be considered for captain positions when the vacancies begin opening up.
The city claims Murphy is ineligible to take the Nov. 19 exam because he hasn’t been a lieutenant for at least two years, a window they say is necessary for promotion. Murphy was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant 15 months ago – the other six candidates on the exam list have each surpassed the two-year mark.
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Murphy argues in the suit that, because there are no current vacancies in the captain ranks and it is unknown when the positions will actually open up, it isn’t necessary to conduct the examination now and preclude him from consideration in the future. By August of 2026, it will have been two years since his last promotion.
City of Akron attorneys, in their response opposing the delay of the Nov. 19 exam, say the exam needs to happen soon because it takes four to ten months to “certify” eligibility lists, and delays in filling a captain vacancy.
Police Chief Brian Harding, who was promoted from lieutenant to captain in under two years, filed an affidavit in the case hoping to prevent the delay of the Nov. 19 exam: “By administering the promotional exam now, APD can immediately fill Captain positions as they become available. This will ensure the uninterrupted and efficient operations of the Police Division.”
Murphy also says that the city’s two-year rule is more restrictive than state law requires and that the city circumvented its policy when promoting white candidates in the past. His complaint cites Harding and current deputy chiefs David Laughlin and Agostino Micozzi, who were promoted from sergeant to lieutenant in December of 2015 — all were then promoted to captain 18 months later. He also cited the sergeant-to-lieutenant-to-captain rise of Kris Beitzel in that same period, despite a conviction on a drunk driving charge prior to her promotion to captain.
“The officers promoted from Sergeant to Lieutenant to Captain have all been Caucasian,” the complaint says. It also highlights current Deputy Chief Michael Miller, the highest-ranking Black employee in the APD, who was precluded from a 2020 promotion from sergeant to captain based on the two-year rule.
“Of note, current Akron Police Chief, Brian Harding has benefitted from being promoted to higher ranks without having met the two-year requirement,” the complaint says. “The City of Akron is using the two-year rule to further exclude other African Americans from being promoted to higher ranks.”
The City of Akron, in its response, said that the two-year rule isn’t only applied to Black candidates – it also cited it as the reason for denying a white candidate, current lieutenant Eric Wood, a promotion to captain in 2023.
The city also responded to Murphy’s point about the early promotions of Harding, Laughlin, Micozzi and Beitzel in 2017.
“The City reduced the required experience from one year to two because, prior to 2015, APD had not promoted anyone to Lieutenant or Captain since 2006,” the city’s reply says. “At that time, APD had an urgent need to establish an eligibility list for promotion to Captain,” so it reduced the eligibility requirements at that time.