Akron beacon journal obituaries thomas9/13/2023 Victim Assistance, an agency that serves crime victims, was creating a kids' room in Summit County Domestic Relations Court where kids can wait while their parents are in court hearings. We called FedEx, but still the packages didn't arrive as promised, so we tracked them down and the homeowner volunteered to take them to her - 50-pound boxes full of her late son's belongings. She called our consumer columnist, Betty Lin-Fisher. FedEx didn't help retrieve the packages and Shepherd, who is dying of stage 4 ovarian cancer, did not feel safe doing so herself. They had been delivered to the wrong address the next street over. Rebecca Shepherd flew to California to pack up the belongings of her adult son, who died unexpectedly, and then paid $600 to FedEx to have them shipped back to her Akron home.īut the packages didn't arrive. Grieving mother receives son's belongings Other examples of the impact of our work are less serious albeit important. Getting Akron officials to release these public records has required extensive work by our legal counsel, which also has assisted us in efforts to secure records from the Akron Public Schools. Additional police videos obtained by the Beacon Journal showed a gun laying on the front seat of Walker's vehicle. In August, the release of videos from after the shooting raised new questions about officers stating "go blue" and turning off their body camera microphones. Our efforts also included securing the release of police body camera videos beyond those required by an Akron ordinance. Lawsuit filed: Beacon Journal asks Ohio Supreme Court to order release of Akron police records As stated before, we may not name the officers, but we want Akron to follow the law. The city's initial legal response was filed Thursday in the Ohio Supreme Court. We've also filed a lawsuit against the city of Akron and police department for redacting the names of the officers in those personnel files, which the newspaper believes violates Ohio's public records laws. We were able to chronicle the still publicly unnamed officers' backgrounds, police experience and prior uses of force, greatly expanding the public's knowledge of those involved. Our revelatory reporting on this tragedy began with a report on the personnel files of the eight officers who shot Walker 46 times as he fled from his car on June 27. We also focused heavily on coverage of three fatal Akron police shootings, especially the Jayland Walker case that sparked weeks of protests and a citizen-led ballot initiative to form a new police review board. The highly critical document sparked a community conversation about the school board and district leadership, with one leader calling the review "character assassination." Fowler-Mack has now resigned. We strive to serve the community through fair and independent journalism that shares important factual information, holds the powerful accountable and engages the community in important conversations about our collective future.Ī great example of fulfilling that mission came when education reporter Jennifer Pignolet in July broke a story about a less than flattering evaluation of Akron Public Schools Superintendent Christine Fowler-Mack. The examples range from the simple to the complex, including numerous revelations from our reporters that impacted the community's conversations about the Jayland Walker police shooting case.įrom the editor: Why local journalists matter in Akron and every communityĭuring 2022, we began to more closely track our impact to better illustrate the importance of our local journalism, which is made possible by the support of our print and digital-only subscribers.
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