Over the past few decades, cities across Ohio have created citizen police oversight boards 鈥� often after high profile shootings of civilians 鈥� to try to increase accountability and restore community trust in police.
One recent example is in Akron. The city created its citizen police oversight board last year, after police fatally shot a 25-year-old Black man, Jayland Walker, more than 40 times.
But the board has struggled since its creation to investigate complaints from citizens.
Ideastream Public Media鈥檚 Anna Huntsman covers Akron city government. She joined the Ohio Newsroom to explain the challenges Akron鈥檚 board is facing and just how effective Ohio鈥檚 citizen police oversight boards can be.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
On how citizen police oversight boards work
鈥淎 civilian oversight board is an independent body providing some sort of oversight over a city's police department. Responsibilities typically include taking complaints from citizens about their interactions with police, looking into use of force instances, issuing policy recommendations about how the department can improve, and in some cases, the boards can actually investigate misconduct complaints themselves. The scope of the power these boards have varies by city.鈥�
On how widespread these boards are in Ohio
鈥淎t this point, most of the state's major cities have citizen police oversight boards:
- Cincinnati formed a citizen police oversight board after a police shooting back in the early 2000s.
- Cleveland has two different boards: a civilian oversight board and a police commission. One takes complaints from citi