Weeks after the City of Akron settled a federal civil rights lawsuit about an Akron police officer punching a Black man in the face during a traffic stop, the same officer is under scrutiny again for punching another Black man in the face four times during a traffic stop, hospitalizing the man with head injuries and charging him with crimes that have since been dismissed.
Independent Police Auditor Anthony Finnell investigated Officer Warren Spragg IV’s violent arrest of an Akron man named Terrell Battles in June 2024. He challenged the officer’s supervisor, who cleared Spragg of any wrongdoing because Battles was “verbally defiant and uncooperative.”
The Citizens’ Police Oversight Board voted unanimously on Wednesday evening to approve the challenge, sending the report to Akron Mayor Shammas Malik and Police Chief Brian Harding, who are under no legal obligation to do anything about it. They have publicly pledged to review the use-of-force policies that Malik says prevent him from, in many instances, disciplining Akron police officers.
Finnell, who discussed the impending challenge at a CPOB committee meeting last week, called Spragg a “frequent flyer” for use of force.
Attorney: Officer Sprague has at least 27 use-of-force incidents
Attorney Imokhai Okolo told Signal Akron on Wednesday that Spragg had at least 27 use-of-force incidents between January 2023 and August 2024, which he believes is the most of any Akron police officer during that period. (Signal Akron has an open public records request with the city seeking all of Spragg’s use-of-force reports.)
The department’s acceptance of Spragg’s force, Okolo said, is why many people don’t trust the police.
The City of Akron paid $15,000 last month to settle a federal lawsuit from a man named Jordan Ely, who was punched in the face multiple times by Spragg during a traffic stop in a parking lot off Copley Road. That event occurred a year before Spragg punched Battles.
Okolo represented Ely in his criminal trial — a jury acquitted him of resisting arrest — and in his federal civil rights lawsuit. Battles’ criminal charges were dropped by Akron prosecutors, for now, and Okolo will represent Battles in any civil litigation he may file against the city.
In the federal lawsuit on behalf of Ely, filed hours before Spragg hospitalized Battles in June 2024, the complaint states, “Spragg has a history of using excessive force” and the City of Akron “has done nothing but approve, authorize, ratify, and acquiesce in the unlawful and unconstitutional conduct” of the officer.
In the 2024 incident highlighted Wednesday by Finnell and the CPOB, Spragg punched Battles in the face at least four times and in his body at least once as Spragg and other officers dragged the man out of the passenger seat of the car his brother was driving and onto the ground to handcuff him.
Battles had questioned why he had to show his identification and why they were demanding he get out of the car.
Body-worn camera footage captures encounter
Throughout the encounter, footage from several body-worn cameras shows that Spragg never told Battles why he was asking for his ID and why he demanded the man get out of the passenger seat of the car, which was pulled over for expired tags. Officers arrested the man’s brother for driving without a valid license.
Spragg approached Battles and became increasingly agitated with his questioning and Battles’ refusal to immediately put his hands on his head when Spragg eventually demanded it.
In the moments before the pummeling, the officer said he has “requisite authority to have anybody get out of a vehicle” and that “I don’t even need a reason” to demand it of people.
Spragg told another officer to open the driver’s door and hit the unlock button, and then he punched Battles in the face three times and in the body once as he and other officers dragged him out of the car and placed him facedown on the ground.
The final haymaker to Battles’ face, as he was pinned to the ground and restrained by three officers, broke his nose and left blood on the officer’s knuckles. Finnell, in the Wednesday CPOB meeting, said the punch to nose “could have been proven to be lethal.”
As irate bystanders witnessed the encounter on East Avenue, a woozy, bloody and handcuffed Battles was taken to the hospital. He was then charged with resisting arrest and obstructing official business, boilerplate charges when Akron police officers use force.
During the 2024 criminal trial of Dierra Fields, who was body slammed and arrested before she was acquitted of the same charges, a sergeant testified it is department policy to automatically charge people “when we take someone to the ground.”
Days later, in his use-of-force report, Spragg wrote for the first time that he asked for Battles’ identification because he noticed he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, which is against state law. The officer’s body camera shows that after Battles was detained, in an effort to move from the increasingly upset crowd that gathered, Spragg got in the driver’s seat of the car he pulled over and drove off. During the seven minutes that the officer’s camera captures his drive through Akron streets, the officer never puts on his own seatbelt, with the seat belt alarm chiming off and on throughout.
Spragg also later wrote he wanted Battles out of the car so they could tow it away, which he didn’t explain to Battles.
Akron prosecutors dismissed the charges against Battles but reserved the right to refile them. The prosecutor’s office recently refiled criminal charges against a man who had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city in a move his lawyers allege was retaliatory.
The Citizens’ Police Oversight Board rejected Sgt. Utomhin Okoh’s findings that the punches to Battles’ face were “objectively reasonable” because Battles was “verbally defiant and uncooperative throughout the encounter.”
“Officer Spragg seemingly was gaining no compliance with Terrell and exhausted his interpersonal communication skills,” Okoh wrote weeks after justifying the escalation that eventually hospitalized the man. “… Through my investigation, I found Officer Spragg punching Terrell in the face to be objectively reasonable. Terrell was persistent in his noncompliance throughout the incident. In an effort to restrain Terrell, Officer Spragg utilized a strike, which was effective.”
The APD and city have long used the “objectively reasonable” standard for assessing use-of-force incidents. The standard was established by a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s, dictating that civil rights complaints alleging excessive force should be judged by how officers felt in the moment, not about how a situation is viewed in hindsight.
“If force that appears reasonable to the involved officer at the time and under the stress of the event is later found to be unnecessary, the officer should not face a penalty for his or her actions,” the Supreme Court decision states. “A 20/20 hindsight analysis … in the peace of judge’s chambers is expressly forbidden.”
Malik looks to reform Akron’s use-of-force policy with review
In October, Malik said that despite not liking what he saw when Officer Thomas Shoemaker body slammed Fields earlier last year, he had no choice but to reject Finnell’s criticisms of that event because it was possible the officer was objectively reasonable. He has since pledged to review the department’s use-of-force policy and is lobbying Akron City Council to approve funding for a review of the policy by a New York law firm and Chicago policing consultant.
Finnell’s report on Wednesday said Spragg’s punches were not objectively reasonable. The force was “disproportionate to the situation” because Battles didn’t pose a threat, he wrote, and the man’s “verbal challenges do not inherently justify an escalation to physical force.”
The auditor said the officer failed to properly communicate with Battles by not explaining his intentions and actions, “exacerbating Terrell’s confusion and resistance.”
Spragg also failed to de-escalate the encounter, Finnell wrote.
“The officer missed multiple opportunities to calm the situation through dialogue and rapport-building, relying instead on commands and physical force.”
Finnell called for:
- The force to be deemed not objectively reasonable and for the officer to be disciplined consistent with that determination.
- That the department emphasize de-escalation to officers.
- That officers “understand and adhere” to APD policies on use of force and de-escalation and that the department conduct “periodic reviews” of incidents.
- Accountability measures for Spragg, including remedial training on force and additional supervision.
- That the auditor, CPOB and APD work together to review the use-of-force and resisting arrest policy.
- That supervisors provide “comprehensive after-action reviews” on “tactical and interpersonal aspects of incidents” while addressing “gaps in training or performance revealed during these reviews.”