Officers who fatally shot Jayland Walker in Akron, Ohio, have been reinstated, chief says
Police officers who fatally shot a man who they say was holding a gun as he sat in a vehicle at a traffic stop in Akron, Ohio, have been reinstated without pay, the police chief said Monday.
Jayland Walker, 23, had a gun that police say he was waving at officers when he was fatally shot by two Akron police officers at 7:13 Friday morning. The shooting occurred after officers tried to pull him over, according to the police chief, Timothy DeMarco.
A video that’s widely believed to have been recorded by Walker and to show the gunfire, first posted on the social media site NextDoor on Sunday, led to an investigation into whether the video was fake, DeMarco told reporters Monday.
The incident left a hole in the community and the police department after the shooting, DeMarco said.
“The people that know us know that we will never stop. We are not going to stop,” DeMarco said. “We always remember the victims of this tragedy.”
He said the city of Akron has “lost one of their most important leaders,” and added that he’s “lucky to have a family member that is still at work. My dad is retired.”
Walker, who works in the furniture manufacturing industry in Florida, was employed at a furniture factory in California, family members said.
The Ohio Division of Police said in an online statement that DeMarco had not been contacted as part of the investigation into the shooting.
The police chief on Monday also said the two officers who shot Walker at the traffic stop did so “in a reasonable, safe and necessary manner.”
“I could not have been more relieved to take this job,” DeMarco said.
The police chief said that the officers’ body cameras recorded the shooting, and the video will result in a “thorough investigation.” Police officials on Monday released a copy of the video to media, but did not release it online.
Walker was one of two men who have been shot by police in Ohio since 2013. The other man was shot and killed by a police officer in Cleveland in March 2013, and a man in Akron in September 2013.
Walker and the