After Police Chief Brian Harding rejected the police auditor’s report calling for discipline of the officers involved in the controversial body slam and arrest of an Akron woman named Dierra Fields, a prominent Black-led community organizing group is demanding the chief resign and is criticizing Akron Mayor Shammas Malik.
“The continued abuse of Akron citizens by the very body hired to protect them is a failure on the City of Akron and the Malik Administration,” wrote Freedom BLOC Executive Director Ray Green Jr., in a statement released Monday morning. Freedom BLOC strongly opposed the internal-only, two-candidate contest that led Malik to appoint Harding as police chief earlier this year.
Freedom BLOC’s condemnation of city and police leadership comes days after Harding rejected Independent Police Auditor Anthony Finnell’s April report criticizing Officer Thomas Shoemaker, who body slammed and arrested Dierra Fields in January, and Sgt. Timothy Shmigal, who was on the scene and did not intervene.
“The Freedom BLOC and our community members have no confidence in neither the governing body of Akron nor the Mayor, and therefore we are demanding the immediate resignation of Police Chief Brian Harding. His inability to hold his officers and supervisors accountable is an extreme flaw in the system of accountability and requires immediate action for the protection of the most vulnerable populations in Akron.”
Akron Police Department spokesperson Captain Michael Miller said Harding won’t be commenting on the case “at this time.”
The auditor called for disciplinary action and investigations into the pair of officers, declaring the force not objectively reasonable and stating that Fields’ arrest was without probable cause, which means there was no reasonable basis to arrest her. Finnell also disagreed with the department supervisor who lauded Shoemaker’s “restraint” during the incident.
Fields was acquitted of the two charges she faced – resisting arrest and obstructing official business – by a jury in June.
Harding’s report was the first official response to the independent police auditor and the Citizens’ Police Oversight Board since Akron voters overwhelmingly passed Issue 10 – the charter amendment that created this oversight system – in 2022 in the wake of Jayland Walker’s killing. It took nearly six months for either the city or the police department to respond to Finnell.
Malik has not publicly weighed in with his own perspective on the incident despite telling Signal Akron six months ago that he anticipated “sharing more of my own perspective” once the auditor completed his review (which happened April 17) and Fields’ criminal case was completed (which happened June 13).
In a Sept. 30 letter forwarding Harding’s report to Finnell, Malik vaguely acknowledged “recurring concern” about the use-of-force policy. He stopped short of taking a position or weighing in directly on Harding’s response to Finnell’s use-of-force report.
“One recurring concern contained in several reviews relates to the use of force/resisting arrest policy,” Malik wrote. “Our administration intends to engage in review of that policy to see how it can be strengthened and improved. I would like your office and the board to play a role in that review and we also intend to have a public engagement component as well. I anticipate having more to share about that policy review process soon.”
In his rejection of Finnell’s findings and recommendations, Harding emphasized a 1989 Supreme Court ruling and said that officers should not be punished for using force viewed in hindsight as inappropriate if a “reasonable” officer could view it as appropriate in the moment.
Shoemaker, Harding said, thought Fields could have fled or hit him after he lost grip of an arm while handcuffing her, so the body slam was “objectively reasonable.” And because the force was reasonable, Harding said Shmigal had no duty to intervene as Finnell suggested.
“Everyone is disgusted by what happened to Dierra except for the police department,” said attorney and Freedom BLOC organizer Imokhai Okolo, who successfully represented Fields in her criminal trial and is likely to represent Fields in a civil trial over the matter. Harding’s report contradicts what he said at the forums he attended earlier this year when he was an applicant for the chief’s job, Okolo said.
“We have no hope – no hope,” Okolo said following Harding’s report. “How can we possibly have hope in the leadership of the police department if we can’t even get a win here.… How in the world is anything supposed to change?”
Greene, on Monday, also criticized Akron City Council for not passing legislation “that enforces the spirit of the charter.” The charter, as Signal Akron previously reported, has no enforcement mechanism for reports issued by the independent police auditor and CPOB – the law doesn’t require the mayor or police chief to acknowledge a report or take any action.
By not creating legislation beyond the “skeleton” charter amendment, Greene said, City Council “decided to weaken our collective power.”