Two Akron police officers were recorded on video Wednesday night repeatedly punching a shirtless man in the face as they tased him, handcuffed him and pinned him to the ground at an East Akron apartment complex. He was led away amid his pleas that he didn’t do anything wrong.
The violent video has been shared more than 10,000 times and viewed hundreds of thousands of times since it was posted on Facebook shortly after the encounter.
Interviews and documents detail some of what happened before and after the record button was hit.
The big picture
Amid stalled plans to overhaul the Akron Police Department’s use-of-force policies, head punches have been an accepted tactic within the Akron Police Department for controlling suspects deemed non compliant.
Independent Police Auditor Anthony Finnell has been raising alarm bells about the prevalence of the tactic’s use within the department for months, and has called for a ban to head strikes outside of “situations involving imminent deadly threats” when deadly force would be justified.
Who are the people involved in this incident?
The man in the video is 31-year-old Dontay Auston.
In the video, he repeatedly said he lives at the apartment complex, but property manager Maya Angelou Robinson and maintenance worker Mike Miller told Signal Akron they did not recognize him and that he wasn’t on a lease there. The Akron Municipal Court docket lists an address in West Akron.
When he was arrested Wednesday night, Auston had an open warrant out of Canton. Stark County court records show that Auston pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct earlier this year and was sentenced to time-served in jail (11 days) and treatment through the Stark County Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities agency. Stark County TASC does “assessment and case management services to our consumers who struggle with mental health, alcohol, and drug abuse issues.”
One of the officers who punched Auston in the face is Samuel Putnam, according to the incident report he wrote. State records indicate Putnam joined the APD in December 2024 after he spent 20 months at the Fostoria Police Department, less than four months at the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office, and five days as a part time employee at the Milan Police Department.
The other officer is identified in the report as Officer Riley, indicating the officer is either four-year APD veteran Truvonte Riley or 11-year-veteran Trumaine.
Where and when the use-of force incident happened
The encounter took place in the middle of the sprawling Park Lane Manor apartment complex in East Akron, across the street from Glover Community Learning Center. Robinson said the complex consists of 350 units across 61 two-story buildings (LeBron James briefly lived there as a child and a 2019 Nike commercial shows the complex at the 3-second mark).
According to court records and Park Lane Manor staff, Auston was brought to the ground by the officers at the intersection of Crane Walk and Coley Path, two pedestrian walkways in the middle of the complex. The video appears to have been filmed from the second story window of one of the apartment buildings that overlook Crane Walk.
What happened before the video begins
Robinson, the property manager, and Miller, the maintenance worker, each said they had concerns about Auston’s behavior, as did the off-site security company that monitors surveillance videos in real-time. Robinson and Miller each called 911 to report Auston, they said.
Miller said the person they later learned was Auston had been “partying out there all day long” and then started “fighting, screaming and yelling,” and acting erratically toward a woman and her child, who they also did not know.
A group text comprised of apartment staffers indicates they began discussing Auston at 8:37 p.m — the police incident report indicates that APD received a call at 9:17 p.m.
“He was beating on their car and there were kids involved, which is the reason I made the phone call (to 911),” Miller told Signal Akron.
The timestamp on the apartment surveillance video shown to Signal Akron indicates police arrived at 9:22 p.m. on Wednesday. On the corner of the screen, it captures a man appearing to run as the APD cruisers arrived.
“The dude took off running,” Miller said, “and then you hear tasers – ‘pop, pop’ – they lit him up.”
The incident report, written by Putnam, states when they first approached Auston, “he had blood on his hands, chest, and smelled of alcohol” and that he “was standing next to a smashed end table” that bystanders said he used “to smash a car windshield.”
Putnam said Auston ran when he told him to turn around so he could be handcuffed.
What the video shows
The video posted on Facebook starts when Auston is already on the ground and getting punched repeatedly in the area of his head. Riley pins Auston, whose hands are behind his back, to the ground. The buzzing sounds of tasers can also be heard as the video starts.
It is unclear how many punches Riley threw before the video started, but the video shows him forcefully connecting with Auston’s face at least five times in the first five seconds.
The officer then stops punching and proclaims, “Don’t ever grab my leg, don’t ever grab my leg” but it is unclear in the video if he actually did grab Riley’s leg.
Putnam, grasping Auston’s right arm, yells at him to put his hands behind his back. The officer appears to let go of Auston’s arm – in the incident report, he claims Auston “was still resisting arrest by tensing his arms while pulling them away.”
Putnam throws four strong upper cut punches squarely to Auston’s face, appearing to connect each time with his nose.
Putnam’s incident report alleges that Auston resisted arrest by tensing his arms and that he grabbed Riley’s leg, but it omits any mention of the officers repeatedly punching Austin.
Auston’s muffled voice proclaims again that he didn’t do anything and that he lives there while the officers handcuff him and sit him up.
After several minutes of arguing, the two officers direct Auston to awaiting police cruisers and the video stops.
After the video
Putnam’s incident report states that the police officers called EMS, which treated and released Auston at the scene — the report does not indicate his condition. The report also states he was then transported to the Summit County Jail and charged with obstructing official business and resisting arrest.
According to testimony in a criminal trial from Akron police officers, it is department policy to automatically charge people with obstructing official business after officers use force on them.
Time stamps show that Facebook user Toni Marie posted the video minutes after Auston was led away, writing: “This is happening right now in Park lane manor! Exactly why I don’t trust cops! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 He is down and cuffed and still beating him and tazing him!!!! Yall need to share this shit! APD yall suck!!! What did he do so wrong? He got in a verbal argument, smashed a bottle on the ground and the cops pulled up and he ran….no weapon was seen.”
The video was quickly picked up by other social media users, including the popular @ochipsx account which reposted the video, racking up thousands of shares and hundreds of thousands of views.
Attorney Imokhai Okolo, who practices criminal defense and civil rights law, among other areas, said on social media on Thursday that he is representing Auston.
The APD issued a press release on Thursday morning with a statement attributed to Police Chief Brian Harding.
“I want the community to know I recognize that there is concern surrounding this incident due to the use of force,” according to the statement. “We are actively reviewing this incident as we do with all police use of force occurrences and will work to share more information as it becomes available. This will be investigated by a supervisor and reviewed by the Office of Professional Standards and Accountability. It will also be reviewed by the Independent Police Auditor.”
