Akron police officer Ryan Westlake, who shot a teenager on April 1, has a history of breaking department policy, records show. The Akron police officer who shot a teenager April 1 has a history of breaking department policy, records show, including an incident in which he was accused of using excessive force on a suspect with a Taser. The incident was not in Ryan Westlake’s personnel file that city officials released earlier in the days after he shot Tavion Koonce-Williams, 15. The officer pulled up to the youth and fired moments after leaving his patrol car. Activists are calling for Westlake’s dismissal after the file revealed that he was previously fired by former Mayor Dan Horrigan in July 2021. He later rejoined the department in an agreement with the city and the police union. Westlake returned from 99 days of unpaid leave on Oct. 28, 2021, for separate incidents of using derogatory language, including a homophobic slur, and pointing a gun at his girlfriend while drunk earlier that year. On Dec. 18, 2021, Westlake and a fellow officer were working as part of a unit attacking gun violence. They heard over the radio that other officers were trying to stop a vehicle driving recklessly on Swinehart Avenue at about 1:30 a.m. Westlake and a number of officers responded to Swinehart Avenue and Roming Road, and they were able to block the vehicle to stop it from fleeing, a police report said. Officers arrested the driver of the vehicle. The car’s passenger, a then-23-year-old man from Akron, told officers that he was wearing a seatbelt as they began to take him out of the car. Westlake used a Taser on the man as officers removed him from the vehicle. “It appeared to me that (the passenger) was refusing to exit the vehicle and actively pulling away from them,” Westlake wrote in his incident report. But a supervisor’s review of the incident, written on Dec. 30, 2021, said the officers at the scene did not find the man to be a threat. One officer walked away from the scene, while other officers remained, the police supervisor wrote after viewing body-camera footage. “On the right side of the screen you can see Ofc. Westlake’s Taser begin to come into view. At that time, (a fellow officer) can be heard saying, ‘No, no, no, they got him’ as Ofc. Westlake deployed his Taser,” the police supervisor reviewing the incident wrote. In the video, the man from the vehicle is heard screaming in pain. None of the other officers used any force against the man during the arrest. The supervisor said Westlake’s use-of-force was deemed “not objectively reasonable” and noted that no officers asked for assistance or for the use of the Taser. “When judging the objective reasonableness of Ofc. Westlake’s Taser deployment, I cannot overlook that information, coupled with the fact that another officer, in the same spot as Ofc. Westlake, with a similar vantage point and with similar experience, did not consider applying force to (the suspect). In fact, that other officer, (Westlake’s colleague) tried to stop it,” the report said. There was no mention of the incident in Westlake’s personnel file. The reports do not mention whether he was disciplined for the incident. “The personnel file that has been provided is a complete production of the public record as of the time of the release. Not every file on our officers is kept with the personnel file,” said Stephanie Marsh, a city spokesperson. Akron police did not respond to requests for comment as to why some records are not included in personnel files. According to the use-of-force reports obtained by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, Westlake has previously deployed his Taser but has missed his subject, causing him to apprehend the suspects by tackling or punching. Police supervisors deemed each use of force reasonable. The investigation into Westlake’s shooting of Tavion, the 15-year-old shot April 1, is ongoing. The incident began when a caller told a dispatcher that someone was pointing a gun at houses. After the shooting, police found a toy gun. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is examining the shooting. Westlake is on unpaid leave. On Friday, Akron police charged Tavion with carrying a replica of a real gun. The charge is a first-degree misdemeanor.
Akron Officer Ryan Westlake’s History of Controversies Emerges
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