This story has been updated to accurately reflect the city’s potential plans to pay for more cloud storage.
Holding police officers accountable is fundamental. Let me say it plainly: If an officer does wrong, that officer should be held accountable.
But let’s also be plain about this — some people abuse the word “accountability” the same way they abuse the word “justice.”
Justice is a process. Too many people use the word to describe the outcome they wanted. When they don’t get that outcome, they say the system failed. That isn’t how justice works, and it isn’t how accountability works, either. Anti-police activists have turned “accountability” into a weapon, claiming we live in a lawless world where officers do as they please.
That’s nonsense. Policing is one of the most heavily regulated and highly trained professions in the country. Officers answer to the community, elected officials, department leadership and review boards. They respond to fast-moving, dangerous situations—and when the outcome isn’t what critics wanted, the critics fall back on an accountability conspiracy theory.
When a word gets stretched to mean “dismantle the institutions I don’t like,” the word stops meaning anything at all.
Take the push for police body cameras back in 2020. Activists demanded universal adoption and called it accountability. They weren’t looking for footage that showed officers doing good work. They wanted footage they could use to attack the police.
Law enforcement supported cameras, too, for the opposite reason. We wanted a record. We wanted protection against false claims. And that is exactly what the footage has delivered, again and again: vindication for the officer.
Akron had already begun rolling out body cameras before 2020. The public can now see, up close, the split-second calls officers have to make. That transparency is important. But it also comes with a predictable problem: selective edits, missing context and verdicts handed down before the full story is in. People who watch the whole video tend to reach very different conclusions.
Even then, some critics use slow-motion hindsight as an opportunity for judgment. After thorough, independent investigations—including grand jury review—officers are often cleared. And still, those critics demand discipline based on nothing more than their own reading of a video. That isn’t accountability. Policing doesn’t happen in slow motion, and it can’t be fairly judged that way.
There is a real cost when the goalposts keep moving. When an officer pulls up to a scene already wondering how the tape will look on the evening news, hesitation follows. And hesitation, in this line of work, can be the difference between a safe outcome and a tragedy. No profession that demands split-second judgment can operate under rules written only after the outcome is known.
As scrutiny increases, our department is being asked to do more with less. In Akron, a $2 million budget cut works out to roughly 26,000 fewer hours of police service. This means fewer responses to calls, fewer officers on the street and fewer proactive efforts to keep neighborhoods safe.
The city, meanwhile, may be spending more on cloud storage next year for extra body-cam footage. Is that accountability? Is that more important than making sure Akron has a police force that is fully staffed, properly trained and equipped to do the job?
Officers are already stretched thin. They move from call to call, often without a moment to decompress, handling everything from routine complaints to violent crime. Expecting performance to improve while staffing falls and scrutiny climbs feels more like a setup than a plan.
Discussions about government accountability too often focus on police with a fervor not aimed elsewhere. True accountability means responsibility at every level of government. It means holding elected officials, administrators and public employees to the same standards of professionalism we demand of police. That means turning the spotlight even onto the mayor and City Council, whose funding and policies deeply impact the work we do and the impact on the community.
Police officers understand accountability because they live it every second of every shift. They carry real authority, and with it, real responsibility — often when lives are at stake. Their actions should be reviewed. But that review has to rest on full evidence, due process and a clear-eyed understanding of what the job actually looks like.
We are pro-accountability. And we hope Akron’s voters shine that same light on everyone — police and politicians alike — applying the standard evenly, fairly and according to what the word actually means.
Used correctly, accountability builds trust and strengthens public safety. Used as a weapon, it does the opposite.
Brian Lucey is the president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7 Akron police union.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron police unfairly face more scrutiny with less funding | Opinion
Reporting by Brian Lucey, Guest opinion / Akron Beacon Journal
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