After nearly a year of false starts, Akron Mayor Shammas Malik’s administration selected the firm that will review the Akron Police Department’s use-of-force policies, an issue he’s called a “matter of life or death” and “the most significant issue facing our city.”
The mayor’s original plan to hire New York law firm Paul, Weiss — a firm that has since faced what critics say was capitulation and then collaboration with the Trump administration — was shot down earlier this year by Akron City Council.
Council members balked at the potential $768,000 price tag and the secretive selection process before approving legislation requiring the city to have a more transparent bidding process, a significantly smaller price tag, and some sort of involvement with the University of Akron’s criminal justice program.
Nearly two months after bids were due, the city picked Police Executive Research Forum, a policing policy and research organization based in Washington, D.C., that it has previously done business with. For the use-of-force review, the firm was awarded a $328,873 contract — some of that money will fund work by employees at the University of Akron Department of Criminal Justice Studies — with the goal of doing the bulk of its work within the first three months of 2026.
City officials hosted a meeting in July for firms to meet with University of Akron staffers. Both university officials and representatives of the firms interested in submitting bids expressed confusion about how the University of Akron would be involved in the review (the university’s involvement was a priority of City Council President Margo Sommerville and integral to the board’s approval of a future contract).
David Licate, chair of the university’s criminal justice studies program, told vendors that reviewing use of force specifically would be “very new” to the department and that very few staffers had the capacity to spend time on it during the school year. A PERF executive said he didn’t know how the firm would integrate the university into its proposal if they didn’t know which staffers were available, when they could use them, and how much it would cost them.
Licate and PERF executives did not immediately respond to Signal Akron’s question on Thursday afternoon about how these concerns were resolved. Signal Akron submitted a public records request earlier this week for all proposals from firms seeking the contract but that has not yet been fulfilled, and the mayor’s office did not provide PERF’s proposal when it was requested on Thursday afternoon.
City and PERF have worked together before
While there was some confusion about the process, PERF and the city have long worked together.
Last year, in the aftermath of high-profile use-of-force cases, the city said APD officers were being trained on a PERF program called ICAT intended to defuse potentially violent encounters with people experiencing mental health crises.
The firm was also hired by the city 15 years ago for an “organizational assessment” of the APD and recommended significant changes to department structure and policies intended to improve community trust — the Malik administration previously said the use-of-force review would look at the APD’s progress on those recommendations.
“The PERF team has extensive experience in this arena, and they bring the knowledge and track record necessary to conduct this review in collaboration with our department and our community,” said Police Chief Brian Harding in a statement. Harding said the police union will be involved in “every step of the process.”
A press release from the mayor’s office said that PERF has already started collecting records from the APD and representatives will be in Akron next month “to meet with key stakeholders and initiate the engagement process.”
What is the goal of the use-of-force review?
The mayor’s office said that, ultimately, the review is intended to:
- Work with policing and legal experts to identify and potentially remedy “inequities and disparate impacts” in the department’s use-of-force policies and training.
- Ensure the APD uses nationwide “best practices” for use of force.
- Find ways to build community trust.
- Create an “implementation strategy” if any policy changes are made.
“I am confident the team from PERF has the experience, skills, and know-how to conduct this review and engagement, and to provide the City of Akron with a list of recommendations which are actionable,” Malik said in a statement. “My commitment is that this report will not gather dust on a shelf but will be used to guide our efforts for years to come.”
