Editor's note:
This article was updated to include comments contained in an April 4 press release from the president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7.
Days after an arbitrator upheld his firing from the Akron Police Department, embattled police officer Ryan Westlake is facing a lawsuit for shooting and wounding a teenager last year.
The long-expected lawsuit was filed in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas on April 1 , exactly one year after Westlake shot Tavion Koonce-Williams, then 15, in the hand as the teenager was walking on a sidewalk in Goodyear Heights carrying a fake gun.
The lawsuit requests a jury trial on one count of assault and battery and one count of negligence, which are both state law claims as opposed to civil rights violations that are tried in federal court. The City of Akron is not named as a defendant.
Westlake was fired weeks after the April 1, 2024, shooting, although the city said that decision was based on two use-of-force investigations unrelated to the shooting involving Koonce-Williams. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7, the police union representing Westlake, appealed the firing, but it was recently upheld in arbitration.
The frequently disciplined officer was previously fired in 2021 by then-Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan, but was soon reinstated.
Attorney: shooting was ‘unjustifiable and reckless’
In the incident central to the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Westlake responded to a 911 call from someone who reported that a young man was waving a gun around as he walked through Goodyear Heights. Westlake shot Koonce-Williams from inside his patrol car within seconds of approaching him as the teenager walked on the sidewalk.
The gun, it turned out, was a toy.
The shooting was unjustifiable and reckless, said Akron attorney Imokhai Okolo, who is representing Koonce-Williams and his mother, Angel Williams.
“We look forward to aggressively litigating this lawsuit in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas in an effort to bring accountability and justice to the Koonce-Williams family,” Okolo said in a statement. “Dare to struggle, dare to win.”
The City of Akron’s spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It is unclear if city attorneys will represent Westlake in the lawsuit.
Akron police union responds to lawsuit
The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7 — the union representing Akron police officers — released a statement on Friday afternoon criticizing the lawsuit, the lawyer who filed it, and the media.
“This former officer made a split-second decision. All he knew was that this person was carrying a gun and had been pointing it at houses,” union leader Brian Lucey said in the statement. “All he saw, was someone pulling a gun from his waistband when confronted by police. The news can call this a fake gun after the fact but if your life depended on it, could you tell the difference in a split second?”
Lucey described the litigation as a “bogus lawsuit is an attempt by greedy lawyers to line their pockets from the city.”
The lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Imokhai Okolo, left his job as a corporate lawyer for Jones Day in 2023 to start his own practice in Akron.