AKRON — Prosecutors from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office are expected to begin presenting evidence and testimony to a grand jury this week in the Akron police shooting death of Jayland Walker last summer. The nine-member grand jury will be tasked with deciding whether probable cause exists to charge the eight officers involved in the controversial shooting.
With the grand jury expected to be seated on Monday, the city of Akron has installed fencing and barricades around key government buildings downtown. Additionally, barricades and other crowd control equipment appear to have been staged along the residential streets surrounding Mayor Daniel Horrigan’s private residence. In an effort to strike a balance between allowing demonstrators to exercise their First Amendment rights while also maintaining order downtown, the city has established a “demonstration zone” on South High Street between East Bowery Street and University Avenue, which flanks the front entrance of the justice center.
City leaders said once the demonstration zone is fully activated, the street will be blocked to vehicular traffic, ensuring the safety of protestors and demonstrators. Fencing will cordon off the front steps to the justice center once the zone is activated.
Multiple business owners in the area have installed plywood sheets over their storefront windows.
Once the grand jury is seated, the nine-member panel of individuals randomly selected from the county’s list of registered voters will examine evidence and testimony collected by Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents who led the investigation into Walker’s death. Instead of determining guilt as if it were a criminal trial, the grand jurors will be asked to determine whether probable cause exists for the officers to be criminally charged.
Also unlike a criminal trial, the grand jury’s decision does not have to be unanimous.
“In terms of the deliberations, it has to be what I would say is a supermajority. If there are nine grand jurors sat, at least seven of them have to vote in favor of indictment,” said Ayesha Bell Hardaway, an associate professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. “It is highly unusual for the testimony that takes place to be released, although it is recorded by a court reporter. That transcript is hardly ever released, and deliberations are never recorded by a court reporter.”
In the early morning of June 27, 2022, Akron police attempted to pull over Walker, 25, for an equipment violation. According to police body camera video, Walker then led police on a four-and-a-half-minute, high-speed chase. Roughly 60 seconds into the chase, body camera video shows the pursuing officer notifying dispatch that Walker had fired a single shot toward the officer. Police later released a still frame from a nearby traffic camera that appears to show a muzzle flash coming from Walker’s vehicle.
As the pursuit entered the area around Firestone Park, police body camera video shows Walker exit the still-moving vehicle before running away. Multiple officers then began to chase after Walker on foot. According to a police body camera video released by APD, one of the officers unsuccessfully tries to subdue Walker by deploying a Taser.
According to Akron police, Walker appears to have attempted to reach for his waistband. Seconds later, eight officers opened fire on Walker, striking him more than 40 times, according to a preliminary autopsy. Walker was unarmed at the time of the shooting, although investigators later reported finding a gun in Walker’s car.
Walker’s death sparked numerous protests in the nine months that followed. Although the protests have largely been peaceful, in the days following the shooting, small pockets of agitators destroyed property and shattered windows in the downtown area.
Prosecutors are expected to present the case to the grand jury over the course of next week. As is the case with any grand jury proceeding, much of what happens occurs outside of public view.
“I think the thing that I hope most people understand and recognize is that the grand jury process is extremely secretive. What prosecutors and what officers do inside of grand juries is largely unknown to the public. This is a space that has no transparency at all in our current legal system,” Bell Hardaway said. “The origins of why it’s treated that way are well understood. You didn’t want people who were suspected of crimes to have their reputations sullied before evidence could be decided whether or not someone should be a defendant instead of just a suspect.”
In the process of doing so, however, the grand jury process is often misunderstood by the general public, Bell Hardaway said.
“The lack of transparency or the failure for there to be some sort of window into the process, I think obviously creates more questions and misunderstanding, conjecture and the like,” Bell Hardaway said.
