The man shot by an Akron police officer last week outside of an Ellet bar survived the shooting and has undergone multiple surgeries at a local hospital, according to co-workers who have visited him in the intensive care unit as recently as Sunday.
The identities of Corey Phillips and the officer who shot him have not been released by the Akron Police Department, which has not provided an update on the incident since Wednesday afternoon, the day after the shooting. Signal Akron independently confirmed that Officer Caleb Bodjanac shot Phillips outside Karam’s Lounge on Albrecht Avenue on Tuesday, Nov. 11.
Body camera footage is expected to be released on Tuesday, based on requirements set by city law.
Court records show that Phillips is 36 years old, the father of at least six children and the owner of a home in New Franklin, with previous addresses in Akron, Mogadore and Brimfield. Signal Akron documented four arrests for driving while intoxicated, starting in 2012, along with a recent convergence of criminal, financial and interpersonal issues in the weeks leading up to Nov. 11, when Phillips was kicked out of the bar and then shot by Bodjanac.
According to Robert Burton, the owner of the construction company that has employed Phillips on and off for much of the last decade as a commercial electrician, the 36-year-old has undergone “quite a few surgeries” since the shooting, including on his stomach and arm. He said that another longtime employee of his visited Phillips on Sunday and told him Phillips was conscious at that point and aware of music being played in the room before he was taken away for another surgery.
“My heart sank when I got the first phone call” the morning after the shooting, Burton said on Monday. “The fact that he was awake yesterday, for a little bit, that’s a good sign, that’s a great sign.”
The shooting outside Karam’s Lounge in Ellet
Bodjanac shot Phillips shortly after 9 p.m. last Tuesday outside of the Albrecht Avenue bar.
A nearby business owner told Signal Akron that the man who was shot had been kicked out of Karam’s Lounge and had verbally threatened to shoot people before the officer arrived. The next morning, Signal Akron observed bloody wound dressings and discarded first-aid equipment on the small strip of grass between the bar’s patio fence and street and at least a dozen suspected bullet holes in clusters on two different sections of the white plastic fence.
The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge # 7 — the union representing Akron police officers – issued a statement on Facebook within hours of the shooting, stating that “citizens” reported an unidentified man who was “armed with a semi-automatic handgun was pointing it at others. When officers arrived, they encountered an uncooperative individual and were forced to make a split-second decision to ensure their own safety and that of the community.”
Neither the FOP nor the Akron Police Department stated themselves that the man, now identified as Phillips, actually had a gun, and no gun was reportedly found on the scene. The statement from the APD did not mention that anyone other than the officer, now identified as Bodjanac, fired a gun.
Bodjanac was previously an officer in the Canton Police Department.
Signal Akron has requested Bodjanac’s body-worn camera footage and any calls made to police about the incident.