As four key members of Akron’s police oversight system talked to Akron City Council’s Public Safety Committee on Monday afternoon about their accomplishments over the past year, Ward 2 Council Member Phil Lombardo criticized that they had questioned the actions of Akron police officers.
“I’ve got to be honest with you because my blood is about boiling right now,” Lombardo told CPOB members Kemp Boyd, Donzella Anuszkiewicz and Robert Gippin as well as Independent Police Auditor Anthony Finnell.
The four had just spoken to the committee about the hiring of an independent police auditor and a deputy, the adoption of City Council-approved rules for the board, police policy reviews and other work done by the Citizens’ Police Oversight Board.
Lombardo asked if any of the four were police officers — Finnell had a long career as an officer and Anuszkiewicz is a retired federal investigator who previously spent 12 years with the Akron Police Department — before evoking Finnell’s reports critical of APD use of force.
Most members of City Council, Lombardo said, and “a lot of citizens, we stand by our men and women in blue.” The auditor’s challenges of the APD throw “gas on the fire for the city.”
Finnell said there are only two incidents out of the 107 use-of-force cases that he reviewed where he “totally disagreed” with the APD. One of those criticized Office Thomas Shoemaker’s body slam and arrest of Dierra Fields.
Finnell’s April challenge of the APD over the incident, along with Mayor Shammas Malik and Police Chief Brian Harding’s recent rejection of Finnell’s report, drew community outcry and regional headlines.
Lombardo didn’t mention any specific incidents and didn’t respond to Signal Akron’s request for elaboration about what was upsetting him about Finnell’s reports.
Lombardo referenced at-large Council Member Eric Garrett’s criticisms of police killings and other police use-of-force incidents involving Black residents.
“He had said at one time, ‘When is this going to stop?’” Lombardo said. “… I know when it’s going to stop: When people start listening, right? If we have people out there who respect authority and play by the rules, there’s no problem. But if not, the officers have to do what they’re trained to do and de-escalate the best they can.”
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Finnell disagreed with the premise, highlighting that he has agreed with 93.4% of the use-of-force investigations conducted by the APD since he was hired in March. The two reports he challenged were “very flagrant violations that go against the policies and practices not only of the APD but of constitutional policing in this country.”
Lombardo’s point that people can avoid force by merely listening to officers’ demands is “a very superficial response,” Finnell continued. The auditor noted that officers can react “very quickly” and come up with justifications for the force they use after the fact.
“You want to go home tonight, same thing with the officers,” Lombardo countered. “That’s why I’m saying, like, ‘Just listen.’ I don’t know how we can get that message out to the community.”
The council member said that when he has been pulled over by the police, he gladly hands over his license and obeys officers: “No problem, I go home at night, everybody’s safe.”
“We’re talking about a segment of the community that’s never been given the benefit of the doubt,” Finnell said. “You get pulled over, yeah, you’ll say that. I get pulled over in one of the cars that I may drive, and I still have that in the back of my head as a retired police officer. The elephant in the room is you’re a white man and I’m a Black man. That feeling is there. Just to say ‘just listen’ doesn’t always work. We do have to have that community engagement, very intense community engagement, but it also has to work on both sides of the fence.”
A review of Akron Municipal Court and Stow Municipal Court records indicate that Lombardo has been ticketed for driving infractions at least seven times in the two jurisdictions since 1991, including multiple crashes. Court records indicate that the council member drove unsafely and caused a crash in 2019 near his North Hill home.
Records also show Lombardo was found responsible for a crash in 2011 near the FirstEnergy campus on White Pond Drive. He was ticketed multiple times for speeding (including going 62 mph in a 35 mph zone), for not stopping at a stop sign, and for not wearing a seat belt.
Anuszkiewicz, who is Black, also challenged Lombardo’s “gas on the fire” analogy about Finnell’s reports that are critical of the APD.
“What I don’t want is for this conversation to be skewed towards blaming the victims, saying ‘They just have to listen, they just have to listen,’” Anuszkiewicz said. “Because it’s a two-way street when you’re stopped by a police officer. If you’re not an African American person, you don’t have the lived experience of racism like we do.”
