Civil rights groups demand DOJ probe into police shooting death of Jayland Walker

A group of civil rights organizations have sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open a federal civil rights investigation of the Akron, Ohio, police officers involved in the killing of Jayland Walker.

Akron officers shot and killed Walker on June 27, 2022, after an attempted traffic stop led to a foot pursuit to an empty parking lot. In less than seven seconds, eight officers fired more than 90 shots at Walker.

The officers continued to shoot even after Walker collapsed. Walker was shot 46 times, according to autopsy reports. After the shooting, Walker’s body was handcuffed.

“Mr. Walker’s family, and the Akron community, deserve accountability and justice,” organizations including the Akron NAACP wrote in the letter. “Local authorities have shown themselves unwilling or unable to deliver justice in this case of deadly force. The DOJ has a duty to open a separate, independent federal civil rights investigation of the officers involved in the fatal shooting of Mr. Walker.”

A statement by the Akron police following the shooting said that during the pursuit, Walker fired a gun from his vehicle. But attorneys representing Walker’s family have questioned this, citing that all windows in Walker’s car were intact.

In the letter to Garland, 23 organizations including Color Of Change, the Freedom BLOC, a Black community organizing collaborative in Ohio, and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, call for the Department to investigate Walker’s death in order to determine a pattern or practice of civil rights violations by the Akron Police Department.

Though the officers directly involved in the shooting of Walker were put on administrative leave following the incident, all eight were reinstated by Oct. 10. An Ohio grand jury declined to indict the officers.

After the grand jury declined to indict the officers, Akron Police Chief Stephen Mylett announced there would be an internal APD investigation, though he said at the time there was nothing “jumping out” to him that made him think department policies were violated by the officers.

But the letter to Garland says the officers’ actions both during and after Walker’s death “highlight serious questions and concerns about the department’s patterns and practices.”

According to the Police Scorecard project, the Akron Police Department had more racial disparities in use of deadly force than 43 percent of U.S. police departments. Between 2013 and 2021, APD officers killed eight people, three of whom were Black. In the same time period, Black people in Akron were more than twice as likely to be arrested for low-level, nonviolent offenses than white residents.

In 2016, a 26-year veteran of the force was demoted after he wrote about the department’s use of force in the police union’s private newsletter. That officer won a $30,000 settlement in a lawsuit against the city, claiming his demotion was in retaliation for the note.

“The APD’s practice of hiding the truth about their excessive use of force is a pattern, not an outlier,” the organizations wrote to Garland. “Since Mr. Walker’s killing, there has been no transparency. The APD has refused to identify the officers who shot Mr. Walker and also recently allowed officers to not wear name tags.”

The letter to Garland follows recent reports of police misconduct in Minneapolis and Louisville. In Minneapolis, the DOJ reported that police routinely used excessive force and unlawfully discriminated against Black and Native American people. The Department also found this year that the Louisville Metro Police Department and the local government engaged in a pattern of discriminatory behavior against Black citizens.

Meanwhile, the DOJ agreed in February to offer technical assistance to the Columbus Division of Police. The letter praised the DOJ’s efforts in Columbus, but added that these same violations need to be addressed in areas around the nation, including Akron.

“Police violence that Black people face in Columbus, Akron and localities all over the country are symptoms of deep, systemic issues that will require multi-pronged, transformative reforms,” the letter said.

“The DOJ has the authority to help ensure full and real accountability of local law enforcement agencies engaged in disparate, excessive violence counterintuitive to public safety. We again ask that the DOJ swiftly open a civil rights investigation of the officers involved in the killing of Jayland Walker and to pursue a pattern or practice investigation of the Akron Police Department for civil rights violations.”

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.