A coalition of community groups is hoping for sweeping changes to a review — instigated by a civil rights lawsuit — of how the Akron Police Department polices protests.
A week before the deadline to provide feedback to the city on a consultant’s draft policy, groups like The Freedom Bloc, Akron NAACP, Indivisible Akron and others are calling for stronger First Amendment protections and the closure of what it views as “gaping loopholes” that could undermine the goal of the lawsuit settlement.
The coalition of eight groups, led by Fran Wilson, who was involved in the lawsuit and later won the primary for the Ward 1 Akron City Council seat, wrote to Akron Mayor Shammas Malik on Friday “that what has been drafted simply does not measure up to the desperate need for accountability and transparency in police activities at protests and assemblies.” The city, led by Malik, is tasked with finalizing the policy.
The process to change the APD’s protest policing guidelines — officially called the Public Order Policy — was negotiated as part of the settlement of a 2023 federal lawsuit against the city by the Akron Bail Fund. The lawsuit alleged that widespread unconstitutional policing tactics were used against demonstrators and bystanders during the Jayland Walker protests in 2023.
Walker was shot dozens of times by Akron police officers and killed after a car chase and brief foot pursuit in 2022. The killing, and the exoneration of the officers who killed him, led to widespread protests in the city.
Click here to read the proposed policy and provide feedback to the city by Friday, Aug. 15.
Police tactics used against the protesters were alleged in the lawsuit to include the use of “smoke bombs and tear gas against peaceful protesters,” unlawful police stops, searches, detentions, arrests, and the closure of public spaces that prevented people from gathering.
The settlement, reached last year, dictated that the two sides would find an independent “expert” who would draft a new protest policing policy with input from community members. The two sides landed on consultant Spencer Fomby, who came to town for a community forum last winter and proposed a draft policy in June, starting the 60-day window for people to leave feedback.
The proposed policy
The vast majority of Fomby’s proposed policy was copied either verbatim or with a few inconsequential tweaks from policies published elsewhere. In addition to significant pre-event intelligence gathering by the police already in Fomby’s document, the community groups’ proposal added more explicit free speech safeguards than the existing APD policy.
The coalition’s letter to Malik and its suggested line-item edits indicate the safeguards are not strong enough for them. Wilson told Signal Akron on Friday that they were “baffled” by Fomby’s proposed policy.
The Aug. 8 letter states that it doesn’t address what the coalition views as “historic police violence and unwarranted aggression” by police during demonstrations. It also said much of it is not consistent with the terms of settlement, which promised stronger limitations on use of force and arrests than what has been proposed.
The group wants changes made to Fomby’s proposal including:
- Explicitly banning mass detentions and mass arrests.
- Limiting what is considered an “unlawful assembly.”
- Requiring police to have probable cause to use force.
- Stronger restrictions on police using weapons and tear gas.
- Requiring a higher threshold for dispersal orders and requiring that decision to be made by a higher-ranking APD official (the proposal states it should be the “operations chief” or higher; the community groups say it should be the incident commander or higher).
- Ensure many police records about protests are considered public.
- Using stronger language, such as removing vague language and changing terms like “officers should” to “officers must.”
The draft policy and the group’s suggestions can be seen below. Members of the public can weigh in until Aug. 15 at 11:59 p.m.
