As Mayor Shammas Malik continues his pitch for Akron City Council to approve funding for his proposal for an outside law firm and policing consultants to review the Akron Police Department’s use-of-force policy, the city is beginning a process to review how the department polices protests.
At 5 p.m. on Feb. 25 (update: Signal Akron originally incorrectly listed this event as Feb. 26) at Garfield Community Learning Center, 1326 Brown St., the city will hold a community forum on the APD’s crowd-management policy, hosted by University of Akron School of Law professor Brant Lee. Retired police officer and national policing consultant Spencer Fomby will present the APD’s current crowd-management policy before recording feedback and input from attendees.
The crowd management policy review is mandated by the settlement of the federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the Akron Bail Fund in April 2023 amid another round of protests and mass arrests spurred by Jayland Walker’s killing by Akron police officers in 2022.
During the uproar in Akron after the officers who killed Walker were cleared of criminal liability by a grand jury, the activist group alleged unconstitutional suppression of First Amendment rights, illegal mass arrests, and pretextual, or false, arrests of protesters who weren’t committing crimes, along with additional suppression of protests by setting off tear gas and smoke bombs.
The city and the Akron Bail Fund settled the lawsuit in July. The city agreed to pay $30,000 in fees to the group’s lawyers and to hire an expert – the two sides landed on Fomby – to conduct what the group called a “democratic process” to create a new protest policing policy.
“Hearing from residents at the start of this process will help inform how the policy is drafted and will ensure buy in from residents and officers as we strive to make Akron the safest place possible,” Malik said in a statement released Monday afternoon.
“As residents exercise their First Amendment right to air their grievances and make their voices heard, it should be with a mutual understanding with Akron Police of when a situation becomes dangerous or unlawful. Starting this policy hand in hand with our community will help ensure that’s the case.”
Monday’s announcement of the forum says that, after Fomby presents the current policy to attendees and solicits feedback during the Feb. 26 event, the use-of-force consultant will create a new draft policy for the public to review. The city will create an email address for the review and will take feedback for 60 days.
Settlement dictates new policy should be enacted by March 31
Fomby is a retired police captain who previously led the training, education and development division of the police department in Boise, Idaho. He was also the “public order instructor” for police in Berkeley, California, and is a member of the National Tactical Officers Association.
In August, he told NPR that he discourages mass arrests during protests and that police instead should be acting more “surgically.”
“[Police] should be able to identify those people who are engaged in criminal activity and hopefully communicate to people in the crowd to deter that type of activity,” he said. “And if that doesn’t work, take some type of intervention that is specific to the people who are committing criminal acts.”
The specific terms of the July settlement between the Akron Bail Fund and the City of Akron dictate that the policy must limit police use of force on and prohibit arrests of people who are merely engaged in activity protected by the First Amendment.
The lawsuit settlement said the new policy should be enacted by March 31, but the timing of the forum means it won’t go into place until at least the end of April, since the public comment period must be open for at least 60 days.
The announcement of the Feb. 26 forum came moments after Malik appeared in front of Akron City Council’s Public Safety Committee on Monday afternoon. He was there to again pitch its members to approve his plan to hire a team from the Paul, Weiss law firm led by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, along with consultants 21 CP Solutions.
The team would review and adapt the APD’s use-of-force policies, which essentially permit all use of force by police officers if they wouldn’t be indicted and convicted for it.
The proposal has the support of Independent Police Auditor Anthony Finnell and Citizens’ Police Oversight Board Chair Kemp Boyd, among others. It has been criticized by many in the city with diverse views about policing as being too expensive — it is unclear if the plan has enough City Council support to pass.
In December, Malik sought permission to spend up to $768,000 on the review, which included $128,000 in “contingency.” On Monday, he said he is willing to chop that $128,000 contingency from the proposal, capping potential costs at $640,000. The Public Safety Committee again did not take a vote, and the mayor said he hoped the legislation could be passed by the end of the month.
