Akron Police Face Questions After Officer Fatally Shoots Teenager
The New York Times
The Ohio city’s mayor and the family of the 15-year-old, Jazmir Tucker, raised concerns about how officers handled the incident.
Newly released video of the fatal November police shooting of Jazmir Tucker, a 15-year-old high school student in Akron, Ohio, has led to pointed questions from the city’s mayor and the teenager’s family about how officers handled the incident.
The footage published by the city on Thursday provided a limited view of the shooting, and it gave little context about the events leading up to it. Akron officials said officers had heard shots fired near them on Thanksgiving night, Nov. 28, and had exited their vehicle to investigate when they encountered the teenager. One of the officers then shot the teenager with a rifle. Mayor Shammas Malik said a gun was recovered from inside a zipped pocket on Jazmir’s clothing.
“Given that, why did the officer decide to use his weapon?” Mr. Malik asked in a statement that also expressed concerns about other aspects of the police response, including the amount of time that passed before officers appeared to provide medical aid to Jazmir.
The president of the local police union, Brian Lucey, defended the actions of the officers, who he said were “forced to make a split-second decision.” He said he believed the ongoing investigation, which is being conducted by Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, would find that the officers had been justified.
The shooting was the latest in a series of incidents in Akron, a city of about 190,000 people in northeast Ohio, to bring questions about how police officers there use force and treat Black men and boys.
In perhaps the most widely known of those cases, a grand jury decided last year not to indict eight Akron officers involved in the 2022 death of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man who was shot dozens of times after an attempted traffic stop and chase. The city recently reached a $4.8 million settlement with Mr. Walker’s family.
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