Welcome to Forum 360.

I'm Stephanie York, your host today.

Thank you for joining us for a global outlook with a local view.

Today we are here with Brian Harding, Akron's newest police chief.

Chief Harding has been with the Akron Police Department for three decades, and during those years, he has helped the department combat violence.

And he has built trust with the community.

In his new role as chief, Harding will continue on those very important missions while also increasing police accountability and refocusing the department's priorities on community policing.

Thank you, Chief Harding, for joining us today.

- Thank you so much, Stephanie, for having me.

I'm really excited.

- Absolutely.

So, Brian, can I call you Brian?

- Absolutely.

- Okay, good.

Tell me a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, your career trajectory and how you became police chief.

- Great.

So I was born in Canton.

I'm 52 now.

grew up in a small town south of there, in Bolivar, Zoar area, went to Tuscan Valley High School.

Graduated in 1990 and started at the University of Akron.

I kind of always knew I wanted to be a police officer.

I had an uncle who was in law enforcement in South Carolina.

Which made an impact and I really always wanted to do something that was kind of different, exciting, and every day was a little different.

- Sure.

- Went to the University of Akron, graduated there, took the police test right as I was graduating.

Didn't know if I'd get hired or not, so I actually took a job with Kraft as a sales rep for just a few months until they called me and said, “hey, will you come back and start the police academy?” So I started in 1995 with the Akron Police Department, went through the academy.

I started on patrol after we graduated the academy.

I was on a night shift 7:30 at night till 3:30 in the morning.

primarily the Copley Road area was there for about five years.

Got promoted to sergeant.

Again, stayed on the night shift, and patrol, which is pretty much, - That’s the exciting shift.

- That is the exciting shift.

Every day was different, right?

- Right.

- I said I wanted to be a little bit different every day.

I definitely got what I wanted.

- That’s true.

- From there went to the detective bureau.

So I spent a large part of my career as a supervisor in our juvenile child abuse unit.

- Okay.

It must have been really hard.

- Yeah, that was the best and worst job I've ever had.

- Sure.

- It's the stuff people do to kids sometimes was kind of eye opening and really sad.

Made it really hard.

- Yeah, right.

- But you also had the ability to really make an impact in the people that you had a chance to serve everyday.

So I really enjoyed that role.

Whether it was juvenile child abuse, human trafficking cases, missing persons cases, Amber alert, [unintelligible] stuff so, - Wow.

- That was a lot.

I really enjoyed my time there.

fill up a lot of resources.

Got to meet a lot of community partners.

Then I got promoted to lieutenant.

- Okay.

Normally when you get promoted, you kind of go somewhere else.

So from there, I went to our Office of Professional Standards and Accountability, which for us is pretty much like Internal Affairs.

- Okay.

So I did some time there and got promoted to captain and again moved [unintelligible] from there I went to what's called technical services.

So I oversaw our dispatch center.

- Okay.

so the Akron Police Department, we have our own dispatch.

We handle police, fire and EMS, and it's overseen by the police department.

So I had that and kind of our IT and Crime analysis division.

I got promoted again and went back to the Detective Bureau.

- Okay.

- As a deputy chief and had the ability to kind of oversee all our investigative functions for the police department.

- Have you been in every department at this point?

- No.

We're pretty lucky.

with Akron we have quite a few opportunities.

So maybe each subdivision I've had the opportunity to work in, but not every role.

So we're lucky that we can specialize in a lot of different ways.

And then last January, I was asked to be the interim chief of police.

So I was held that role till last May.

And I was officially sworn in as the official chief in Akron.

- Oh, wow.

That's quite the career.

- It's been great.

I've been blessed.

- So your bid for chief was not without its challenges as the search divided city leaders.

Why do you think you were the right choice at the right time?

- So I think it was important.

We've been internal and external, some external chiefs, and they both bring different perspectives.

I think getting an internal chief that knows how our department operates has had an opportunity to build relationships in the community, make a big difference.

not to say there's not others who could do the job as well.

I just think for me it's been a passion for service.

I think, understanding how our agency operates, understand some challenges, really understand the impact of community engagement.

- Yeah.

- Was really important to me.

- You certainly have a leg up.

If you're internal and you - Absolutely.

- come to get the job, right?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- You're extremely respected among your fellow officers.

You've worked in almost all the divisions, and you have an exemplary record.

Was it hard to take the reins from being amongst your friends and peers to becoming chief?

- Not so much the jump to chief.

I would tell people I think the largest jump in that role is going from officer to sergeant.

- Okay.

- Because officer, you're just all peers.

When you become a supervisor or a sergeant, they're still your friends.

But now you have the first ability to have the opportunity to supervise them.

So to me, that was probably the biggest jump, - Yes, - from that level.

but no, I have a good relationship with the majority officers.

I'm about relationship person.

- Yes.

- I've always kind of prefer to get you to come on board and work things together that way.

So I have a really good leadership team, so I'm really lucky.

- Oh, that's good, that's good.

With respect to the police department, what are your priorities?

So what are you working on right now?

- Absolutely.

So there's three main buckets.

- Good.

The first is community engagement and relationships.

I think that's kind of the backbone of what our communities asking for.

- Yes.

They want an opportunity to engage with our officers.

and our officers, want an opportunity to engage with the community.

So creating those opportunities, some things we did last year, Well, we have a thing called a park and walk and talk.

That's ability for our officers to kind of call out on the radio and not be available for calls and get out and engage.

We did great last year.

We went up over 220% in our calls - Out on that.

- That's awesome.

- Community engagement events.

We're up over 100.

Last year, we went over 570 organized community engagement events.

So we've always had an A division or group of officers that that's their main function.

- Sure.

- But really trying to get it.

Patrol officers, encouraging our officers to go to the ward meetings in the district so they have the opportunity to serve in every day.

So a community gets to know the officer who's probably going to respond to their house.

So that's probably our our number one priority.

Next is recruitment and retention.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

That's been a challenge not just for us law enforcement across the country is seen that.

- Absolutely.

So what are you doing for that?

- So that's a great question.

for us putting more emphasis on how we recruit, digital media, trying to connect with people where they're at.

We've increased our age to be certified for an officer.

- That’s good.

- You can come on a 20.5 up to 45 now.

- Wow.

- For us.

We've also started a new lateral program last year, which has been kind of a big push throughout my career.

Something doesn't happen 29, 30 years ago when I started.

Now everybody does laterals, and that's the ability for an officer that serves somewhere else, to come in and go through an abbreviated academy for us.

- Oh, wow.

- We also started where we have our own police academy.

So when we hire somebody, we pay them to go through the academy while they're there.

- I mean, that's great.

- It is.

It made a big difference especially in our community.

So that helps us recruit in Akron, which has been a big push in Akron and Summit County.

Try to get people maybe understand the community, have some relationships as we talked about, that's important to us.

So we've done that.

We've also been very purposeful about our recruitment team.

- Sure.

- Making sure they reflect the diversity of our community.

I think that's a big push.

There's some initiatives, whether it's 30 for 30, which is trying to get 30% of a police department to be female by 2030.

So those are big push is for us as well.

So, really just trying to cast a wide net.

Partner with whoever we can.

- and that's getting people in.

Are you seeing that a lot of people are leaving law enforcement, too?

- They are.

- Yeah.

- That's been a big challenge for our agency specifically.

But 5 or 6 years ago we would have about 5 to 8 resignations a year.

- Sure.

- Last year we had 21.

- Yeah.

I mean, I've been hearing it.

- So what's going on?

- So I think it's a challenging career.

I think there's no better time to be a police officer, right?

If you have a call to service, great customer service skills, people really want to engage.

And we have the best technology and equipment we've ever had.

but also, you realize it's not for everybody.

so we try to help on the front end.

When we go through the recruitment process, we require our candidates to do a ride along as well.

I think that's important for them to get an opportunity to see what being a police officer is.

- I did a ride along.

It was awesome.

- What do you think of it?

- It was awesome.

I did a night shift.

I get to run after someone like following the police.

It was pretty exciting.

Well, I could have stayed in the car, but you know me.

- Absolutely.

Yeah, You wanted to get out, which is great.

That's what we like to see.

Ride alongs great.

So hopefully that was really impactful for you.

- It really was.

- That’s great.

- It’s crazy.

But, so what are you doing to try to get people to stay?

- So I think we for us we have what's called temporary assignments in our department.

- Okay.

- So allowing officers not just to go to patrol, but maybe if they have a passion to go to juvenile child abuse or they want to go serve in the regular detective bureau - It’s a good idea.

- Or we have street narcotics, or gun violence reduction teams giving them an opportunity to go there, maybe do training academy.

So try to give them a chance to move around.

And community engagement is another area that we're making a focus on and trying, whether it's two weeks or 30 days or 90 day assignment, - Sure.

to come out of patrol to get a chance to move around.

That's a big push for us.

We also going to be rolling out a recruitment or, I'm sorry, retention team this year to kind of help with that, to try to understand what other things we can do.

You know, we're giving officers more time to work out, which is important.

Making sure they have the best equipment we can possibly provide.

but actually pay is really important.

- Of course.

- There's only so many people that want to be a police officer.

So everyone's kind of starting laterals.

- Sure.

- So that's been a challenge.

And really community support and support for officers in general makes a big impact.

When we talk to officers and they do exit interviews.

Those are a couple things they've always identified.

- Yeah.

So what's the third thing, initiatives?

- Yeah, sure.

Crime prevention specifically around gun violence.

- Good.

For us, that's been a big change When I came on years ago, we did not interact with many guns.

People with guns is very rare.

last year we recovered over 1000 illegal guns.

- Wow.

- So we're seeing a lot more - Of that.

- That's scary.

- It is absolutely scary.

It changes an interaction.

- Yep.

- I came on, you would not see many guns.

You always thought somebody could have one, but you didn't look at it that way.

Now our officers just come across that a lot.

So it makes it more challenging, A relationship on both sides there.

So we're partnering with our federal partners.

We have a specific gun violence team.

We're trying to really use data to make better decisions on where we can assign resources and personnel to look on that.

But the positive news.

- Yeah?

- We were down over 17% last year.

- Really?

- and our gun violence crime drill is really good.

So we've you have seen the trend come down.

That's god.

- Okay.

So you've been police chief for a little over a year.

Tell me in what ways this is The job is exactly as you expected.

And in what ways it is not what you expected.

- Wow.

Great question.

- What's the biggest surprise?

- Yeah.

So I guess I would say I'll start the first part.

What was it I expected?

So having risen up through the ranks, the organization had a pretty good idea what the day to day looked like.

The meetings you'd be attending, some of the big initiatives that we needed to do, where those were.

I would say some of the biggest part that you pay attention to is the impact of everything you say and do.

and how hard it is just always to be present.

So what I mean by that, it's really important that I get out and get to roll calls.

That I go different spots throughout the department.

But being a larger department, there are so many spots there and it's easy to get, you know, I want to be engaged.

I want to be present in the community.

I want to have one on one meetings with other community leaders.

- There's only one of you.

- Yeah.

So, how do you do that?

- Sure.

- I don't do a good job saying no.

So that's never been a strength of mine.

so I try to always find a way to say yes.

So that's probably been the biggest challenge in this role for me.

- Sure.

Okay.

You weren't even on the job one week when Akron had a deadly shooting at a birthday party that killed one, injured 27, and traumatized, really, the entire community.

Well, that was your real first test.

What did you learn from that experience?

- I think people want accountability.

People want transparency.

People want to understand what's going on.

I think the mayor, that's a big push for him and for us.

So I think getting out in front of the community and trying to give you the information we had, that's a really challenging case.

And like you said, it's caused a lot of trauma throughout our community and greatly impacted a lot of families.

- So get people information, as you know, quickly, accurately, - Absolutely, as soon as you can But that's a delicate balance as well, because you don't want to give bad information, right?

- Exactly.

So you want to be right with what you give, but giving the community a chance to ask questions, being present, assigning additional resources to making sure that we can continue to have touch points with victims and their families.

And thank goodness for like, victim assistance and other community agencies that we partner with that made a profound impact.

kind of help with that about healing.

- Yeah.

So I want to remind our viewers and those who may have joined late, that we are here with Brian Harding, Akron's relatively new police chief.

We're learning about the chief's role, community policing, police involved use of force, which we're getting to.

And we are going to delve into the Akron Police Oversight Board and learn more about the Akron Police Auditor.

So let's continue.

- Sure.

- So we talked about community policing.

So I'm not going to go back to that.

I'm going to move on to let's see, the Akron Police Department has been engaged in several public police involved use of force incidents, which has come under a lot of criticism.

And I'm not here to talk about whether they were justified or not justified uses of force at all.

I want to talk about the impact those use of force incidents have had on our community.

Like, do you think the public has lost confidence in our police force?

- So I think there's a lot of work to do to continue to build trust.

I think for some, those incidents are just tensions.

And policing nationally has seen has seen a decrease.

If you look at some of the Gallup polls, you've seen decrease in that.

Now we've seen an uptick.

but I think, you know, we talk about accountability, transparency and building relationships.

You put a lot of deposits in the bucket that way.

But one really negative encounter can kind of empty that.

So, - Sure.

- Trying to make sure that we do a better job educating our community on how complex use of force.

I think some people don't understand one, the laws around it, but also how infrequent it really occurs.

- Right.

- Like for us, we went to 100 and over 135,000 calls for service last year.

Any idea how many times you thought we use force last year?

Reportable force?

- I don't know, 300?

- Actually, you hit it right on the head.

And that's the best guess I've ever had with all the community ones.

Sometimes people will say 20%, 30% of the time it's less than one quarter of 1%.

- That's crazy.

- So it's a lot less than I think people realize.

However, it can be so traumatic to the community when we - Right.

- have that.

- because those are the ones that make the news.

- Absolutely.

- So you get 300, say in, say 150 of those make the news.

Only half of them.

That's all you're seeing.

You're not seeing the how many thousand?

- We have over 135,000 calls.

- 134,700 and whatever, You don't see those at all.

So you just think all we're seeing are these use of force cases.

And that's not, - So It's a challenge.

And those can be a real challenge.

So another thing for us, big push.

last year was we instituted our Citizens Police Academy.

- Yes.

- So we do that twice a year now in the spring and the fall.

- That’s very cool by the way.

Can you explain what that is?

- Yeah.

So that's an eight week course where we throw out an application.

We ask some community leaders or just city residents that want to learn more about policing.

It's once a week for eight weeks and we cover topics from equipment, recruitment, retention, use of force.

They get an opportunity to go out and do some hands on training as well and learn more about that.

Plus, it's also a great opportunity for us to kind of engage with the community and learn from them.

Some of the questions they have.

- Absolutely - So while we may be trying to educate and teach, we're also learning a lot - as well.

- It’s a win win.

- It is absolutely.

It's great.

So like 70 people last year.

- Wow.

- So hopefully we’re definitely to do that again this year, get our numbers up even more.

- hopefully they tell people so they come and do that.

- Absolutely.

And we're trying to then also do that as we go to ward meetings, spending time educating the community, whether it's use of force or gun violence or gun safety measures, passing out gun locks, - Keep that up.

That's great stuff.

- Yep, absolutely.

- So what do you think the biggest challenge of the Akron Police Department faces right now?

- The first two.

It is definitely continuing to build trust with our community.

I think that changes outcomes completely.

That's the long game, right?

You have to continue to do that.

- Yep.

- And we're very committed.

I know the mayor's committed.

I'm committed to continuing to build trust.

And then it's recruitment and retention because as your numbers go down, it's creating those, The calls for service are probably going to remain the same.

- Sure.

- If we have less officers to respond, they have less available time to engage.

And they become very reactive.

So creating opportunities for them by making sure our recruitment and retention continues to stay up.

We're budgeted for about 488 officers.

- Okay.

- We're about 435 today.

Now we do have 28 in the police academy.

- Okay.

- So that's good.

We're going to start our recruitment campaign again.

So we'll always be hiring between, resignations and retirements.

Those to me are they're really the two big focuses.

- Okay.

So what is the police oversight board?

What is that?

- So it was a charter in the city of Akron that created a board.

And then they hired an auditor and deputy auditor and they review all use of force and complaints completed with the police department.

- Okay.

- And they either concur or maybe disagree if they have a different findings and also make recommendations for training.

And I think the big thing also is in the hopes that we're going to come together and continue to educate the community and do community outreach.

- So where in the process do they fit?

Like, so is it at the end after something has happened and you said sometimes a there's a complaint to the police, does the police department, look at the complaint and send it to them?

Does it go directly to them?

How does that work?

- So kind of two different tracks.

- Yeah.

- use of force.

all reportable use of force.

We investigate that.

It's investigated by a supervisor and then ultimately reviewed by a shift commander and then ultimately reviewed by the Office of Professional Standards and Accountability.

And then that's sent to the oversight board.

So the police auditor gets to review them as well.

And then we either concur or maybe send back recommendations.

- Okay.

- Complaints.

You can complain on our line.

You can go to the oversight board and file a complaint.

- Okay.

- You can also call and have a supervisor come out to make a complaint.

We investigate those.

And then those complaints are also shared with the oversight board at the end.

And then they have an opportunity to review those as well.

- Okay, and you get recommendations from them?

- Sure.

- Written or something?

- That we either concur.

They may just say we concur with the findings on this or we concur, but we prefer something else.

So we would like to get together and talk about maybe some trends.

We're seeing some training we would recommend.

And so we'll have those conversations as well.

- So Akron also has a police auditor.

And I heard you mentioned the police auditor.

What is a police auditor and who does he work for and where does that person come into the picture?

- Yeah, so the auditor works for the Oversight board.

- Okay.

- So you have the nine member Oversight board and they have an auditor and a deputy auditor.

So when we send the completed complaints or when they go out on community events, it's really the auditor deputy auditor.

- Okay.

And then ultimately they're going to come up with their recommendations.

And they propose those to the oversight board.

- Okay.

- And then the Oversight Board once a month will either concur or disagree with those findings.

I believe at this point they've concurred with each of of theirs.

And then, so that's kind of how the system set up.

- Okay, wow.

All right.

So it's kind of a lot of hands in the pot.

- Yeah.

- but it's good because it's all about oversight and being accountable.

- Yes.

- So it's all good stuff, but it seems to be a lot.

And as long as everybody knows the system and how it works, then I have faith that this will work right.

- Yeah no, I mean, I think it's no different than everything, right?

I think people want accountability.

People want some transparency, and people want an opportunity to weigh in.

I think the Oversight Board gives them, some of that.

And then for us is dialog, right?

We need to continue to make sure we have that dialog, which we do.

- Sure, sure.

Okay.

So Judi Hill, the president of the Akron NAACP has been a critic of the chief's selection process, not of you necessarily, but of the process, as has Reverend Ray Greene, the executive director of Freedom Bloc, a black led community group.

But both are willing to work with you on, helping change the culture within the police department.

What does that mean?

Does the culture in the police department need to be changed?

- What are they talking about here?

- So I wouldn't speculate for them.

- Yeah.

- I think culture is important.

for me, the biggest push on culture is around the updates when we talked about community relations and building trust.

- Okay.

- That to me is the biggest issue in our culture that we need to continue to work on.

Officers have a challenging job, whether it's officer wellness programs, the trauma that they deal with as well, but also creating those opportunities for them to get to engage with the community.

- Right.

I think the more they can understand what a wonderful, vibrant community Akron is, I think the more that relationship begins to increase.

So for me, when we talk about culture, that's what we're talking about.

Treating everybody with dignity and respect, being professional all the time.

- Sure.

I think that's kind of the culture is I've met with them as well that we talk about.

- So is there any pushback from officers on getting out in the community more and doing this community engagement?

- No, our officers want to engage.

It’s really, the biggest challenge for us is creating the opportunities and creating the time.

Especially for our midnight shift at 9 at night til 7 in the morning shift.

- There's not as many opportunities at, you know, 9:30 at night to get out and engage.

How do we create those opportunities?

How do we pull them into special details during the day?

How do we continue to allow them to go to ward meetings?

and then how do we just understand all the different resources that Akron has to offer.

- In the last several years, it seems every time we turn on the TV or look at our phones or watch the news, there's another violent incident racially, ethnically or religiously motivated.

Is there more violence in our community now, do you think?

Or is this just a perception because of all the media attention?

- So our numbers would show and I think nationally the numbers would show.

They've come down the last couple of years, around 2020, 2021.

Were definitely the most violent years I've seen in my career.

Our homicide numbers were closer to 50 during those year.

To 26 last year.

That's still up from years ago, but I definitely see crime coming down.

I do think that, you see more of it.

You see, the more body worn cameras.

- Yes.

- You get a chance to see more of that.

- Sure.

- And I think that, to your point becomes the perspective that people become more aware of.

But luckily for us, locally and nationally, the numbers are actually down over the last few years.

- That's awesome.

- It is great.

We need to keep going down.

I would like nothing better than to be at zero.

- It'd be great.

Then you can just do all your community engagement you want.

- Absolutely.

Then the recruitment and retention.

You know, we can have fewer officers that we could do more that way.

If you had a magic wand and money were no object, what is the one thing you would do at the APD that you aren't doing now?

- Wow, money was no object.

Yeah, I would guarantee you we have a staffing level that allows at least 40% of our officers time to be unallocated.

- Yeah.

- To truly engage.

To me, that is the dream.

- It’s a dream, really.

- that we would have if money was no object, and that would allow the community and us to continue to partner at and even a greater level.

- I love it.

- Yup.

- When you go to work every day, what's the one thing you look forward to doing?

Besides getting your coffee?

- I usually do that before.

But I bring it with me.

What's the one thing I look forward to the most?

I'm a people person.

I just look forward to being around people.

You know, I don't think I would do well with work from home.

So there's Covid years, staying at home and being quarantine.

We're not your cup of tea.

- They weren't.

That's a great thing about police work.

You wouldn't have the opportunity to stay at home.

So, we already had a mask, but we were, you know, maybe some of our meetings were more virtual, but still have the opportunity to engage.

So to me, that's the highlight.

I love you know, last week was I had an opportunity to do some interviews for a rotary scholarship.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Engaging With our youth and getting to do it.

Like I really I love interacting with our youth.

- Thank you, Chief Harding, for the great discussion today.

I want to end by saying that I fully support you and the Akron Police Department, and I respect the men and women who put on the APD uniform and put themselves in harm's way every day to serve and protect us.

I appreciate you all, and I pray for your safety.

I also want to thank you for all you do for our community and the bridges you are trying to build.

I know you get a lot of complaints daily, so let me thank you for doing what you do every day.

to keep our community members safe in a world that seems very violent and unsafe at the moment.

I certainly learned a lot today, and I know our viewers did, too.

I'm Stephanie York, thank you for joining us today on Forum 360 for a global outlook with a local view.

- Thank you so much for having us.

I really appreciate the conversation and the opportunity to do engage.

Forum 360 is brought to you by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Akron Community Foundation, Hudson Community Television, The Rubber City Radio Group, Shaw, Jewish Community Center of Akron, Blue Green, Electric Impulse Communications, and Forum 360 supporters.