AKRON, Ohio — The City of Akron has carried out several recommendations made by the Racial Equity and Social Justice Taskforce and is working on instituting more, according to an announcement made by Mayor Dan Horrigan.
The recommendations are part of a five-year strategic plan, and final recommendations were submitted to the city on Feb. 28. So far, the city has implemented the following recommendations:
- The City created job descriptions for the Police Auditor and an administrative assistant and implemented the recommendations to make those positions full-time. The Auditor position is filled and the City is searching and recruiting for the administrative assistant position.
- Body-worn camera recordings are uploaded by each uniformed police officer to the designated server at the end of each shift.
- Officers are subject to discipline for failing to wear or activate body-worn cameras as well as failure to upload recordings as required.
- The Police Auditor has immediate access to unredacted body-worn camera recordings, or, if it is authoritatively determined that such access is legally impermissible, the auditor has access to redacted body-worn camera recordings upon request within 72 hours.
- Members of the public have access to redacted body-worn camera videos of the use of deadly force that causes serious bodily injury within seven days as required by the ordinance enacted by the Akron City Council.
“When the taskforce submitted their final recommendations to me this year, I vowed that they would not sit on a shelf as a lifeless document but would be a plan of action with specific benchmarks that the community would use to hold us accountable for creating real change," said Horrigan. "I'm thankful in light of what our city is currently experiencing, that these recommendations exist and that we have been diligently working on them since we received them. This is only the beginning and I'm looking forward to hearing more ideas and action items from our community in the days and weeks ahead.”
The following recommendations from the Criminal Justice Subcommittee have been agreed upon, the city said, but due to additional coordination required with other agencies and private entities, they have not yet taken effect because they not under city management or are under law or fiscal review:
- Body-worn cameras should be worn by all deployed uniformed officers, including SWAT.
- Uniformed officers should be required to wear body worn cameras while engaged in secondary employment.
- Body worn cameras should be activated: immediately when responding to in-progress calls; on other calls when exiting the police vehicle; and whenever reportable force is used.
"The City is also reviewing the fiscal implications of creating a full-time deputy police auditor position. The City’s full response to the Criminal Justice Subcommittee’s recommendations will be included in the September report and Implementation Plan," the city said.
CLICK HERE to view the full 5-year strategic plan.
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
