AKRON, Ohio — At St. Ashworth Temple in Akron, Jayland Walker’s legal team and family hosted a press conference to show their reaction to the newly released police footage.
In this footage it revealed that police officers shut off the audio on their body cameras after shooting Jayland Walker. Bobby DiCello, Jayland Walker’s attorney, expressed his anger about the police turning off the audio.
“And after they shoot and end the life of Pam Walker’s son, they turn off their mics, they turn off their cameras. What did they say? What did they do?,” he said.
DiCello said the police did not give them an explanation why this video was not shown to the family or legal team originally.
“We didn’t get any explanation as to which videos they’ve released or why they’ve only released the ones they’ve released and why they are now just releasing this one Friday,” he said. “We are not getting any communication from them on that.”
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is still investigating this incident, which includes the newly released footage. DiCello said the police microphones should have never been shut off.
“You can certainly note though that we don’t agree, that in this case, the silencing of the mics in the video was warranted under the circumstance,” he said.
Judi Hill, the Akron NAACP President, was emotional during the press conference and presented an idea for some change.
“The Akron NAACP, black elected officials of Summit County, clergy, other advocates, we want to establish an independent citizen oversight board for the police,” Hill said. “Along with guidelines to improve police and community relations, because right now it’s broken.”
