Auditor Fennell details four use-of-force reviews; board accepts reports and records recommendations for policy and training changes

Auditor Fennell presented four individual use-of-force reviews and related recommendations to the Akron Citizens Police Oversight Board; the board voted to accept the reports during the meeting.

Fennell outlined that his office is completing data-analyst contracting and case-management vendor discussions, and that initial 2022throughAugust data has been provided to an analyst firm for further review.

Case 202500088595: Fennell said officers responded to a reported robbery where two juvenile Black males fled; one was apprehended after a head strike and was transported without a seat belt. He recommended that the Akron Police Department investigate the transportation violation and the sergeants failure to document or address it, require formal documentation of policy deviations and remedial actions, prohibit subjective justifications for ignoring policy, mandate body-worn-camera activation and create an early-intervention review trigger for head strikes.

Case 2025-00091845: The auditor described a narcotics-detail traffic stop where the recorded basis for stopping the vehicle (an alleged stop-sign violation) was not independently verifiable and was not captured on video. Fennell raised concerns about selective enforcement and racial-bias risk in pretextual stops and recommended requiring documentation of traffic violations, mandating activation of body-worn and in-car cameras for such stops, restricting pretextual use of minor infractions absent independent articulable suspicion and clarifying officer training on Ohio firearms-disclosure law.

Case 2025-00094701 (CVS incident): The report described officers who used downward pressure to the head and base of the skull on a partially restrained, intoxicated person; a bystander assisted by holding the subjects legs. Fennell said such skull/neck pressure carries significant medical risk and recommended explicitly banning pressure to the skull or neck for pain compliance, prohibiting reliance on civilians to restrain subjects, expanding training on alternative control techniques and ensuring supervisors review whether less-intrusive alternatives were available.

Case 2025-00100289 (ATV/insulin pump): In a stop of a person riding an ATV, body camera footage showed the subjects pants falling and the later disclosure that he wears an insulin pump. Fennell said the subject had surrendered and that officers forced him to the ground, creating unnecessary risk to a medical device and that the takedown was not objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. He recommended reclassifying the force as not objectively reasonable where warranted, considering discipline as appropriate, enhancing training on issuing verbal commands before takedowns, and incorporating medical-disclosure awareness into force-decision training.

Board members asked clarifying questions on each case. For the SNUD stop, Fennell said some officers had body-worn cameras and that the vehicles used by the unit lacked in-car cameras; for the ATV case he said the insulin pump was partially concealed and became visible when the subjects trousers fell. For the head-strike juvenile case he said a sergeant had failed to properly document and address a transportation-seat-belt policy violation.

The board voted to accept the auditors report(s) for the individual cases during the meeting. The auditors recommendations will be forwarded to the Akron Police Department for investigation, policy revision and training development as appropriate.