Akron police Chief James Nice was sitting in a morning meeting Tuesday when his phone buzzed.
A cursory glance at the screen told him a body had been found, shot in the head, in a Highland Square parking lot.
Hours later, Nice was told just before lunch that another man had shot himself dead in front of a police officer.
“Today before noon today, we had two dead from gun violence,” the chief said to a group of about 20 community members on Tuesday evening. The chief had been invited to speak at a West Akron Kiwanis meeting at the Akron-Summit County Public Library Northwest Akron branch.
The chief said Tuesday’s gun violence wasn’t unusual — the city has about a shooting a day, and he said it’s only going to get worse because violence and crime are on the rise nationally and locally.
The steady hike in crime has many factors, but Nice said the most prominent cause from the police perspective is what he calls the “Ferguson effect.”
Nice said the “Ferguson effect” is the result of increased criticism of and pressure on police following the 2014 officer-involved fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo.
“After Ferguson, police are being scrutinized at a level much higher than before,” Nice said. “It’s common practice now to have neighbors filming officers when they arrive on scene.”
He said the national media have tainted the public’s view of police by repeatedly playing videos depicting interactions gone sour between police and the public. He said the public is also more willing to assert their knowledge of their constitutional rights. As a result, he said police are becoming more lenient — making for increased crime rates.
To illustrate his point, Nice challenged his audience to guess how many police departments there were in the U.S. One man guessed 5,500 — but Nice said there were 18,000. He added that Akron police respond to 650 to 800 calls a day.
“I’m not here to protect poor police behavior,” he said. “But with 18,000 police departments and 800 calls here per day, you’re talking about millions of opportunities for people to capture video of police behavior.
“Why, then, is the media playing the same videos over and over?”
He said it’s because the number of dangerous interactions with police is “infinitesimal” compared with the total interactions with police.
Nice’s comments were challenged at the Kiwanis meeting by some who were in attendance.
Kim Sweeney of Akron questioned Nice regarding the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland. She expressed concern that a police dispatcher in that case did not provide police with all the information given by a caller — specifically that the gun held by Tamir was not a real firearm.
“How do we change it to make it so everything given to the dispatcher is given to officers?” she asked.
Nice said that’s already the case.
“It is that way,” he said. “That dispatcher made a huge mistake. There were a lot of mistakes in the Tamir Rice case. The whole thing was a mess.”
Another spectator, Lewis Barnes, said he was concerned about police not being held accountable after shooting members of the public. Specifically, he took issue with grand juries across the country opting not to charge police in officer-involved shootings of black men.
Nice said the public has to trust prosecutors in cases like that because grand jury proceedings are not public.
“Then how does the public know what was presented to a grand jury?” Barnes asked.
Nice said what was presented to a grand jury isn’t what should be focused on. Instead, he said the conversation should be about whether police should be charged “for doing their job.”
“You don’t indict people to appease the community,” Nice said. “You indict people because there’s evidence that a crime was committed.”
Other topics touched on at the meeting included the drug epidemic and community policing tactics and trends.
Nick Glunt can be reached at 330-996-3565 or nglunt@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @NickGluntABJ.