The 9 member Citizens Police Oversight Board (CPOB) was established in 2022 after issue 10 passed The board and the board appointed Independent Police Auditor, Anthony Finnell, work to review police conduct and provide recommendations with the goal to create accountability

Kemp Boyd (Board Chair) started the meeting started at 6:04 PM with Donzella Anuszkiewicz (Vice Chair), Brandyn Costa, Robert Gippin, Shawn Peoples, Beverly Richards, Ericka Burney-Hawkins, and Crystal Jones Present The previous meeting minutes passed unanimously

Finnell made a document that shows 24 reports, 23 of which the auditor found no issues with the Akron Police Department (APD) conduct and 1 is in progress He said no Akron Public Schools students applied for the intern position but 1 out-of-district student applied

GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE REPORT The governance committee met on Oct. 30th and discussed use of force policies. They also discussed how a community engagement committee's structure and responsibilities according to Gippin He said there will be a committee meeting on November 19th

He said they will present at the November 20th Ward 8 meeting and the November 25th Akron City Council Public Safety Committee meeting at 2:15 pm to discuss the annual report akroncitycouncil.org/committee-meet…

Jones said she is considering co-chairing the community engagement committee with Castle for personal reasons. She said she wants to committee to focus on educating residents about the board and collecting community feedback about use of force

Boyd said Castle agreed to co-chair the committee

Costa asked how police use of force reviews will interact with community engagement about use of force Gippin said community engagement will influence board positions about policies that will be recommended to city administration

BUDGET AND FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT Costa said there is $165,000 left for this year's budget most of which is for labor. He said there won't be a large carryover as seen in previous years and there might be a $13,000 deficit that will require additional funding

Costa said there are $20,000 that were not used for community engagement that will be used to fill deficits or carryover to the next year

Boyd thanked board members and staff for their time and effort on the board and Gippin for his work with the Community Engagement Committee

Anuszkiewicz said she attended a conference recently At this conference there was a discussion about a Critical Care Response Team created in Phoenix Arizona in response to police discrimination against disabled and homeless people phoenix.gov/police/crisis-…

She said a CPOB in New York monitors officer language and can go as far as to recommend prosecution and discipline of officers She said the charter must be amended to give the Akron CPOB more power beyond recommendations

She said officers practice how they are trained Younger officers were trained for use of force only using homeless people and people of color. This practice was later reviewed and changed by the New York CPOB

Gippin said he agrees but doesn't see a charter amendment as a priority He said his takeaway from the conference is that community engagement is important

States are limiting CPOB power according to Gippin Gippin said the Ohio CPOBs need to collaborate to protect oversight powers komu.com/news/midmissou…

Anuszkiewicz said officer badge numbers change when they are promoted. This makes it difficult to track incidents involving an officer as they ride the ranks. . Electronic case management (like proposed by Finnell) would help to counter that issue owlbadges.com/police-badge-n…

Anuszkiewicz suggested doing "board swaps" with the Cleveland CPOB where the boards would occasionally attend each others meetings and help learn from eachother clevelandohio.gov/city-hall/depa…

The meeting ended at 6:55 pm. the next CPOB meeting will be December 18th at 6:00 pm at Akron City Hall (166 S. High Street). For more coverage check out Akron.documenters.org

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