Akron’s Citizens’ Police Oversight Board voted to recommend that the city not renew its Flock Safety camera contract until an independent audit of the surveillance system is complete, while deciding against asking the city to suspend the cameras outright, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.
Across two votes reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, the board first rejected, 7-1, a letter written by board member Jennifer Boswell that would have asked the city to suspend Flock use until after the audit. Boswell then joined the other members in approving a second letter, written by board member Tamara Brooks, asking the city to hold off on renewing the Flock contract.
The second vote stopped short of sending the letter to the city, the Beacon Journal reported. The board’s governance committee will review Brooks’ letter and add more information before returning it to the board for another vote, board Chair Kemp Boyd, who abstained on both votes, explained to the Akron Beacon Journal.
Vice Chair Donzella Anuszkiewicz said the board needed more data before asking the city to suspend Flock use, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. “We need to know the cities that have been suspending the usage of Flock − why they have suspended it because those issues may not have anything to do with how we conduct business here in Akron,” she told the Akron Beacon Journal. “Based on those unknowns, how many private citizens have actually been harmed by the use of these Flock cameras?”
The Brooks letter asks that the city not renew the current Flock contract, which ends Dec. 31, 2028, until the audit is complete, the Beacon Journal reported. Once the audit is done, the letter recommends that any future contract prohibit outside agencies from accessing Akron Flock data, require city-controlled user permissions and complete audit logs, and set retention and deletion requirements, according to the letter as reported by the Akron Beacon Journal. It also asks the Akron Police Department to adopt policies for automated license plate reader use.
The votes came after nearly two hours of discussion with Akron Public Safety Chief Craig Morgan and Deputy Chief Michael Miller, the Beacon Journal reported. Morgan told the board Flock has helped solve many crimes, including a double homicide case out of Cleveland and hit-and-runs, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Addressing concerns, Morgan said an internal inquiry found more than 6,000 immigration-related searches before the city barred those inquiries in May, and that no such searches have occurred since, according to the Beacon Journal’s account.
Board members agreed Flock is helpful while raising concerns about how it was introduced, the Beacon Journal reported. Boyd said the city and police department should have communicated with the public more before implementing Flock, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. Miller told the board, as reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, that he understands the concerns but that Flock helps solve crimes and give families closure.
What happens next is procedural: the governance committee revises the Brooks letter, the full board votes again, and only then does the recommendation go to the city. The cameras themselves remain in use in the meantime — the board’s action, as reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, is about the contract renewal and the audit, not an immediate shutdown.