At a Thursday's press briefing to address the June 27 officer-involved fatal shooting of 25-year-old Jayland Walker, and subsequent unrest in the city, Akron Police Chief Steve Mylett was asked about reports that officers in the city are no longer wearing badges or name tags.
"Every officer is wearing a badge. I authorized them to take their name tags off because of the threats that were made against our officers and the bounties that were placed on officers' heads," Mylett said. "People were getting their names off of their uniforms, getting on social media and elsewhere and going into our Facebook page here in the police department to identify, get a picture, send that picture and that image out into the public. In some instances, they got family photographs and put it out on social media. But because of the threats that were made against our officers, I authorized them to take off their name tags."
Mylett said that any officer who is asked for his or her identifying information is directed to provide their employee number and if the person was not satisfied with that, a supervisor would be summoned to the scene to deal with the situation, WKYC reports.
