More than five and a half years after two Akron police officers shot and killed Akron resident Mohammad Isaifan, a federal judge declared that the killing was reasonable and that the two officers did not violate the 40-year-old father’s constitutional rights.
Officers Jamie Rea and Matthew Akers shot Isaifan at least 14 times — including initially in his back — as Isaifan was walking toward his Brittain Road home after abandoning his car on the side of I-76.
In an opinion filed on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge David A Ruiz rejected key pieces of evidence offered in a federal lawsuit against the officers — an eyewitness who testified Isaifan wasn’t holding a gun when he was killed and footage from a nearby surveillance camera purportedly showing he was walking away — and sided with Rea and Akers.
Neither were wearing body cameras as they worked a special security detail for the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority. They testified of an imminent threat from an armed man who actively resisted their orders.
Ruiz wrote in the ruling that the officers had the right to detain Isaifan at gunpoint because he committed a crime when he abandoned his car on the side of I-76 and that the killing did not constitute excessive force because the officers testified Isaifan unholstered his gun and turned toward them.
The June 23 judgment — granting the officers’ motion for summary judgment filed more than two years ago — ends a protracted federal civil rights lawsuit filed against the two officers nearly four years ago by Kimberlee Vaughn, who is Isaifan’s ex-wife, the administrator of his estate and mother to their daughter.
“We are heartbroken but not defeated,” Vaughn told Signal Akron on Tuesday night. “This is not a surprise given the lack of accountability of officer involved murder cases across the country for many years.”
Vaughn’s Chicago-based attorney, Scott T. Kamin, said on Tuesday he was “outraged” about the judgment in the case he filed in Cleveland’s federal court in November 2021.
“This has taken a ridiculous amount of time,” Kamin said. “We will be filing an immediate appeal.”
The City of Akron Department Law, which represents the officers, declined to comment on the case.
Vaughn has become an outspoken critic of the Akron Police Department and advocate for Isaifan in the years since the killing and has also regularly made appearances at protests and in public meetings in the wake of Jazmir Tucker’s death late last year.
Earlier this year, Vaughn was a guest on the Life After the Impact podcast, which is for families of people who have been killed by police. Vaughn spoke about “the ongoing legal battles, the frustrations of fighting for justice in the face of systemic challenges and the hope that one day, there will be accountability for the officers involved in Mohammad’s death.”
The episode also delves into the emotional weight of losing a loved one to police violence and “the relentless pursuit of justice in a system that often seems stacked against families like hers.”
Ruling finds no constitutional issues with officers stopping Isaifan at gunpoint
Rea and Akers shot Isaifan at least 14 or 15 times on the morning of Dec. 15, 2019, on Brittain Road. The two officers were working a security assignment at the nearby Nimmer Apartments when they heard over the radio that people had called 911 to report a man had abandoned a car near the median on I-76 and was walking away. Isaifan had run out of gas and was walking home, the plaintiffs said.
An officer responding to the abandoned car said he found ammunition, a gun and a wallet with Isaifan’s driver’s license listing an address. Rea and Akers — in an unmarked car — headed to that Brittain Road address and said they spotted a man walking who matched Isaifan’s description. They got out, pulled out their guns and demanded he raise his hands.
Ruiz said there were no constitutional issues with officers stopping Isaifan at gunpoint because he had committed a third degree misdemeanor by abandoning his car on the highway.
The judge accepted the officers’ version of events — as they described it in depositions but not captured on video — about what happened next.
“Thus, within the span of five seconds,” Ruiz wrote, “Isaifan resisted Officer Rea and refused to follow commands; suddenly stops walking, unholstered and grabbed his gun, and started turning towards Officer Akers with the gun in his hand while he was close to Defendants; and continued to turn as Defendants shot.”
Ruiz agreed with police testimony that Isaifan was an “immediate threat” and that therefore the killing was objectively reasonable.
In court filings, Vaughn’s attorneys previously detailed a surveillance camera across the street from the shooting that showed Isaifan walking away from the officers and that he never twisted or lifted his arm prior to officers shooting him in the back. A witness in a nearby home testified that after he heard the first gunshot, he looked out the window and saw Isaifan walking and “trying to get away” as the officers kept shooting at him.
The judge did not view the security camera or the witness testimony as important. The footage is “of poor quality,” taken from far away, and with trees and shrubs that obstruct the view, he wrote. Ruiz accepted the officers’ argument that the witness is immaterial because he only claimed to have witnessed the incident after the first shot was fired and didn’t see what happened leading up to it.
Vaughn told Signal Akron that “video along with the eye witness statements conflict heavily with what the police have revealed” and the judge’s ruling is not the end of the “Justice For Mohammad” movement.
She emphasized an impending appeal.
“We will never accepted defeat,” she said. “Until my last breath I promise you that.”
