Akron police shoot suspect following shooting at troubled Oasis bar in North Hill

An Akron police officer shot a woman early Friday morning after the woman allegedly shot someone inside a bar that has a troubled history on North Howard Street.

The officer shot the 21-year-old woman during a foot pursuit after she shot another 21-year-old woman in a restroom in the Oasis Surf and Turf bar in the city's North Hill neighborhood, police said.

A man died in a shooting outside the same bar on June 19.

City Prosecutor Craig Morgan said Friday he will soon meet with the owner of the bar and the liquor permit holder to discuss ongoing concerns that need to be resolved, or the city will take enforcement action.

The latest incident happened just before 3 a.m. after a fight broke out in the restroom, Akron police said. The woman who was shot inside the bar went to a nearby hospital where she remained in critical condition Friday afternoon with a gunshot wound in the abdomen area, police said.

The woman shot by the Akron officer was given first aid on the scene and then taken to to Summa Akron City Hospital with what are considered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The Oasis is on North Howard Street, near the intersection with Tallmadge Avenue.

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A witness at the bar followed the shooting suspect and flagged down police officers, Akron police said. Officers said they saw the suspect had a handgun and then started a foot chase.

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The officer shot the woman during the chase in a parking lot, according to police. A weapon was recovered at the shooting scene, police said.

"Officers witnessed what appeared to be the suspect raising her arm in a shooting manner," Akron Police Chief Steve Mylett told Beacon Journal news partner News 5 Cleveland. "And the officer engaged with gunfire, striking the suspect two times. When the suspect fell to the ground, and as the officers went to render aid, a gun was found next to her body."

Officer body-camera video of the incident will be released within seven days as a 2021 Akron ordinance requires, Mylett said. "We want to get the video out to everybody."

Mylett said based on what he saw in the footage, the suspect put officers in a position where they had to make a split-second decision.

Police have not released the names of anyone involved.

The parking lot, at the former Liberty Harley-Davidson dealership at North Howard and Cuyahoga Falls Avenue, was largely blocked off by police tape for hours. The property is now used as a convenience store and nightclub.

The officer who fired the shot, a two-year veteran, was uninjured and has been placed on paid administrative leave. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting along with the Ohio Attorney General's Office, police said. A Summit County grand jury will review their findings.

A separate internal investigation will be done by the Office of Professional Standards and Accountability. Results will be given to Mylett and to the city's police auditor for review.

This is the first officer-involved shooting since the Jayland Walker death in June that led to protests and the fourth police shooting since December.

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Walker was shot 46 times by eight officers and died at the scene. Police say he fired a shot during a car chase that began in North Hill not far from the site of Friday's shooting.

City looking at options involving Oasis

Morgan vowed to hold the owner of the Oasis accountable.

According to Summit County records, the property has been owned since 2017 by Kimberly Lockett of Seward Avenue in Akron. When reached by phone, Lockett said she had not heard from the city and just found out about the incident Friday afternoon. Lockett said she leases the property, but pledged to revoke the lease.

"They aren't going to reopen," she said.

"My office is going to take a hard look at the Oasis," Morgan said. "There's a lot of layers available. It usually just starts with a sit-down of the property owner and the liquor permit holder. That lays the foundation for the next steps."

At the upcoming meeting, which had not yet been set up as of Friday afternoon, the Oasis owner will be given the choice of addressing the city's concerns or face enforcement action, Morgan said. The meeting will spell out the city's enforcement options, he said.

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City Council can object to the renewal of the Oasis liquor permit, he said. The city can also declare the Oasis to be a nuisance, he said.

Before the city sees the need to take action, "we hope they come into compliance with the issues that we are trying to address," Morgan said. "Once I put them on notice, I expect things to get better."

His office is compiling a list of police calls for service to the Oasis, he said. Besides the fatal shooting in June and Friday's shooting incident, there have been other police calls there, he said.

"There certainly have been other calls to the property," Morgan said. "There's calls every year."

On Friday afternoon, one North Hill resident named Doug who lives near the bar said "there are plenty of fights and shootings that happen outside in the Oasis parking lot that the police aren't aware of."

"I can see from my balcony sometimes at 3 or 4 in the morning people in the parking lot behind Oasis fighting or chugging back beers and throwing rocks at nearby houses," said the man, who did not want to use his full name because of safety concerns.

"I live with my 3-year-old daughter and I am afraid to let her play outside at night because I don't want her hit by a stray bullet or a rock or see her get hurt."

Todd Burros, a North Hill resident who lives streets away from Oasis, believes the bar itself is not at fault, but rather the patrons who frequent the bar.

"The violence at Oasis involves a majority of kids who are a part of a culture where owning and using guns and participating in violence is glorified," Burros, 61, said. "Oasis is not the problem; the problem is the youth that spend their nights getting drunk and believing that getting in fights or shooting at each other is the only way to solve their problems."

What happened in other police shootings?

Two officers shocked and then fatally shot 58-year-old James Gross in the head and neck on Dec. 23 in Kenmore. According to police reports and body-worn camera footage released within a week of each incident, Gross was holding a knife to his estranged wife’s throat at the time.

Two separate officers fired a total of four rounds into a house in West Akron on Feb. 22, killing 21-year-old Lawrence LeJames Rodgers.

Rodgers had appeared multiple times in the side door of his cousins’ home on Ritchie Avenue as police were outside. He was ordered to drop a handgun, which officers say was leveled at them just before they opened fire. Fatally wounded, police said, Rodgers walked back into the living room and killed his cousin. Akron also released police video of the initial incident.

Staff writer Anthony Thompson contributed to this report. Beacon Journal reporter  Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Woman accused in Oasis bar shooting shot by police