Police union, teen’s attorney disagree over shooting
AKRON, Ohio (WJW) — New details are emerging about last week’s police shooting of an Akron teenager, who officials later said was armed with what turned out to be a toy gun. The attorney for the teen and his family said the officer who fired the shot, should be fired but the police union said the shooting was justified.
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It was on April 1st when officer Ryan Westlake responded to a complaint about a young man pointing a gun at houses in the city’s Goodyear Heights neighborhood.
Video from the officer’s body camera shows that Patrolman Westlake pulled up, spotted the teenager with a weapon and almost immediately fired a single shot, that struck 15 year old Tavion Koonce-Williams in the hand.
It turns out the weapon that the teen had been holding in his hand was what the teen called a fake gun.
Attorney Imokhai Okolo, who represents the teen and his family, told Fox 8, “plain and simple, it was a toy and officers are trained to eliminate threats when they somehow feel threatened and that’s what he tried to do, and by the grace of God, he missed.”
Immediately after the shooting, officers rendered first aid and Tavion Koonce-Williams was taken to the emergency room for treatment of the non-life-threatening injury.
“How does a 15 year old walking to his grandmother’s house result in being shot by the police department within seconds of the officer pulling up, before he is even able to hop out of the car?” asked Okolo.
The Mayor of Akron, attending a community forum on Tuesday about the selection of a new police chief, said in the interest of transparency, the city released the bodycam video and the officer’s personnel file on Monday.
Mayor Shammas Malik told Fox 8, “we want to make sure that we prevent tragedies like this but we are going to let the investigation run its course.”
City records show that Officer Ryan Westlake was fired in 2021 for misconduct, that included threatening his girlfriend with a gun while intoxicated but he was later re-instated.
The attorney for Tavion Koonce-Williams and his family is now calling for the dismissal of Ryan Westlake. “What happened was clearly excessive, unnecessary and lacked basic human decency and dignity and concern for human life, that’s not what we want on the Akron Police Department,” said Okolo.
But according to an expert on the use of force, the officer was acting in accordance with the policies of the Akron Police Department and his training.”
Kevin Davis served in law enforcement for 39 years before retiring and has served as a longtime trainer of police officers and as an expert witness in use of force cases.
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Davis said the video does not show everything that the officer saw but said it’s clear he reacted to what he perceived as a threat.
“Officers are allowed to use deadly force when they believe their lives are being threatened. In this case, there was a facsimile firearm but there’s no way based on what the video captured and what the officer could see to believe it was anything other than an actual firearm,” said Davis.
While the attorney for the family of Tavion Koonce-Williams believes that Ryan Westlake acted recklessly, the Fraternal Order of Police and their supporters say patrolman Westlake had to make a split second “life and death” decision.
“We don’t want individuals out here just for lack of a better word, trigger happy, hopping out of a vehicle and shooting at someone before anything even happens,” said Imokhai Okolo. Kevin
Davis responded, “but in this case, because of the immediacy, perceived immediacy of the threat, then deadly force is appropriate.”
State BCI agents are now investigating the shooting. Their findings will be turned over to the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office and could then be presented to a grand jury.
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