How did a police officer with multiple disciplines almost get hired by Akron schools?
Akron Public Schools will revise its hiring practices for part-time police officers after the name of an officer with a litany of disciplinary infractions ended up on a school board agenda, prompting a public outcry.
The school board on Monday will hear a presentation from administrators about the process of hiring full-time school resource officers and part-time police liaison officers who provide support as needed.
Changes will include a more streamlined, official process for interviews and review of officers, even for part-time officers, a district spokesman said. There are no plans to request the personnel files from the Akron Police Department or Summit County Sheriff's Office for every officer who applies to work for the district.
"But our discussion of this matter is not over," district spokesman Mark Williamson said in an email.
The changes come as the district took heat over the near hiring of Lt. Brian Simcox, an Akron police officer who has been disciplined four times in his career.
District officials said it was a mistake that Simcox's name ended up on the July 24 school board agenda for approval. His name was removed before the meeting, but several people during the public comment period asked the district to review how he had gotten such strong consideration in the first place.
Simcox made it far in the process — despite a decision from human resources not to hire him — due to initial recommendations from within APS and the police department, errors in the HR department and a process that allowed an APD officer to bypass the system to put Simcox's name on the school board's agenda.
Simcox said by email he was never informed of the decision not to hire him.
"I was applying to work the sporting events because they are in dire need of supervisors to work the football and basketball games, which have become more and more of a safety issue," Simcox said. "They can hire whoever they wish, and I have no opinion on their decision if it is final."
Board President Derrick Hall said after public comment July 24 that the board "recognizes that there are opportunities with regards to our HR processes and the administration."
"Let me assure you all that we are taking this very seriously, and that steps will be taken to be sure that we improve that process by working with the appropriate individuals involved," Hall said.
Days later, the district's leadership changed, with new superintendent Michael Robinson taking over Aug. 1. The Simcox situation became one of his first issues to tackle.
"Dr. Robinson is aware and is already initiating a process change based upon what he has learned," Williamson said.
What is a police liaison officer?
Simcox was seeking a job with Akron schools as a police liaison officer, a position he held previously, working on a part-time, as-needed basis for the district starting in 1997 when he joined the police department. Williamson said there have been no documented issues with Simcox in his hours working for APS.
Police liaison officers are different from school resource officers. SROs work in schools as their full-time job with the police department or sheriff's office, and have to bid for a school-based assignment through their department. They are paid by their agencies, not APS, and go through additional training once they receive the assignment. Liaison officers are hired to work part-time outside of their regular employment, and are hired directly by the school district but still come with a recommendation from their departments.
While they are not full-time positions, police liaison officers can still be in schools or otherwise have contact with students and families. The district has a pool of about 80 police liaisons who can be hired as-needed for tasks like security at athletic events, to replace an SRO who may be absent, or to support an SRO at a school if extra security is needed.
District records go back only to the 2010-11 school year, but Simcox worked a total of 1,127 hours between that school year and the end of 2015. He was approved for assignment in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years but did not work any hours, according to information provided by the district. Discipline he received for violating Akron Police Department policy in 2017 included a 90-day period in 2018 in which he was banned from taking secondary employment assignments like working school or bar security.
Simcox was set to be paid $50 an hour for his work this coming school year, if he had been hired, according to the agenda for the July meeting before the item was removed.
Mo Canady, executive director for the National Association on School Resource Officers, said even if an officer is part-time with a school district and is not a full SRO, they should be well vetted if they will have any contact with students.
"Whether it's sub or regular people we still want to apply the same standard," Canady, a former school resource officer, said.
Interviews are an important part of that process, he said, as well as what's in an officer's personnel file.
That doesn't mean any disciplinary action taken against an officer should be disqualifying, he said. An officer with a history of a traffic accident on the job or an accidental discharge of a firearm could still be well suited to work in a school.
"It's important that we make (sure) when we're looking at disciplinary information that we're really digging in deep at what was a mistake of the head, what was a mistake of the heart," he said.
When asked if the disciplinary actions in Simcox's file should be disqualifying, Canady said, "I think that those are without a doubt red flags that have to be looked at."
Who is Akron Police Lt. Brian Simcox?
Simcox made sergeant in 2001 after four years on the force, then lieutenant in 2006 and captain in 2015.
Since 2017 when his actions led to a demotion from captain to lieutenant, Simcox has been investigated five times for allegations of improperly sharing crime scene photos and sensitive police information or gossiping inappropriately about colleagues. Internal affairs substantiated the claims and recommended discipline in all but the last incident from October 2021, when he was accused of failing to log into evidence a photo he took of a dead woman at a vehicle crash.
His 2018 demotion came with a reassignment from commanding patrol officers to overseeing radio room dispatchers. At a crime scene on East Market Street, Simcox photographed an image of a sex act on a woman's cell phone. He shared the photo with fellow officers at the scene, a firefighter, a tow-truck driver and, later, with members of his own family, the internal affairs investigation found.
For his “poor judgement, incompetency and unprofessionalism” in the mishandling of evidence and violating the department's anti-harassment and sexual harassment policies, the demotion came with a loss of 60 days of paid leave and a 90-day ban on secondary employment like working school security.
In May 2020 as the city braced for nationwide protests after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Simcox posted on another officer’s Facebook page the time and location that a SWAT team would assemble the next day at police headquarters. Simcox — who later told investigators he was only joking — also posted in the social media comments that he would not answer the phone if police were called to quell the unrest.
He appealed his 10-day suspension by then-Chief Ken Ball, but Mayor Dan Horrigan denied the appeal.
In July 2020, Simcox openly “disclosed information about an adulteress affair related to an applicant on the eligibility list" while discussing potential new hires with his dispatchers on the floor of the Safety Communication Center. When a dispatcher questioned the appropriateness or relevance of Simcox's comment, Simcox insinuated that the dispatcher was also having an affair with an officer, who was expecting a first child with his pregnant wife.
"For Simcox to imply that I am an adulteress is a lie," the dispatcher told investigators. "I was embarrassed and humiliated, as my co-workers looked at me in complete awe."
Simcox told internal affairs investigators that he tried to end the conversation because it was becoming unprofessional. But a technician admittedly trying to help Simcox said she had to fabricate an equipment malfunction to pull Simcox aside and tell him to “zip his mouth.”
As punishment, Simcox forfeited three days of paid time off and attended two human resources classes.
In October 2021, Simcox walked into a room of officers and requested a volunteer to give a radio dispatcher a ride-along. She’s not "beautiful" like the sister of one of his subordinate officers, Simcox said, starting a joke that some officers present said went too far as he showed pictures of the sister in a bikini on her Instagram page.
For again violating the department's anti-harassment policy, Simcox forfeited three days of paid leave.
Later that month, as a lieutenant on the day shift working overtime that night on a gun violence team, Simcox arrived at the scene of a crash and took a photo of the mangled body of woman ejected from a wrecked BMW. The driver, who was later convicted of aggravated vehicular homicide, had fled a traffic stop and lost the police before crashing into a dumpster.
Though they found no violation of department policy, investigators looked into why Simcox would keep the photo, which he shared with other officers but did not tag into evidence, when a crash reconstruction team was on its way to document the secured crime scene where evidence was under no threat of being compromised by bad weather or public interference.
When interviewed by internal affairs, Simcox couldn't recall if he showed the photo to his wife.
How did Simcox's name end up on an APS agenda?
Simcox applied in December to work as a police liaison officer for the 2023-24 school year, district officials said.
Simcox was recommended for the job by Akron Police Sgt. Doug Sandor, the district's main contact at the department, Williamson said. Sandor sent Simcox's name to the school district's Director of Safety and Security Don Zesiger. Williamson said Zesiger then gave his recommendation for Simcox to move forward in the process and sent him on to HR.
Williamson said Zesiger was aware of Simcox's demotion and the issues that led to it in 2018.
"Mr. Zesiger was aware of the episode that occurred five years ago," Williamson said. "His recommendation is simply that, a recommendation. HR still has/had the final say and did reject the application.
"Mr. Zesiger felt that the applicant had served APS well for 20 years prior (1997-2017) and has been fulfilling the rules of the discipline handed to him by the Akron Police Department in 2018."
Williamson said Zesiger did not review Simcox's personnel file, which documented the issues that had transpired since, but that has not been standard practice for APS in hiring officers.
Human resources did not approve of Simcox's hiring, Williamson said, but it was because of news reports, not a process of reviewing a personnel file or other routine due diligence, that HR became aware of Simcox's history.
"HR was alerted by a person within the HR department that he/she was made aware of APD's disciplinary action vs. the officer from various news accounts when it was an active story," Williamson said in an email. "That information drew concern from HR which then rejected the application for employment."
He said the issue went up to the HR director, Kathy McVey, who has since retired.
Zesiger was informed of the decision, Williamson said, but it appears no one informed Sandor or Simcox. It is not standard procedure though, he said, to inform someone who has applied for a job that they will not be hired.
Months later, as the school year was approaching, Sandor reached out to the HR clerk asking for Simcox's name to be added to the July 24 agenda for approval. The clerk, apparently unaware of the previous decision not to hire Simcox, added him to the agenda. Williamson said at least one senior member of HR was copied on that email from Sandor, but did not intervene.
"It was not caught right away because of the backlog of work in HR as we continue to search for a director," Williamson said. "However, it was discovered and immediately removed from the board's agenda."
But by the time it was removed, the possibility of Simcox being hired had already reached social media, thanks to local activist group Serve the People Akron, which encouraged Akron citizens to speak out about the hiring.
Simcox's name was removed from the agenda, but about a half-dozen people still spoke at the meeting. They thanked the board for removing Simcox from the agenda but called for a review of how he had made it that far.
Fran Wilson, one of the people who spoke at that meeting, said this week that Akron should have a larger conversation about whether police officers should be in schools at all. But if they are, "we should always very much interrogate the recommendations from APD for officers that should be around our children," Wilson said.
Hall said he has requested the administration give a presentation at this Monday's meeting on the process of hiring officers. The board's job, he said, is to ensure the administration will have a process in place that is "congruent with district and board values."
"That is a process that we're engaged in right now," he said.
Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.
Contact reporter Doug Livingston at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3792.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: APS changing process after almost hiring APD Lt. Brian Simcox
