Displaying items by tag: Steve Barry

The cover of this month's Summit County Sheriff's Office newsletter has the leader of Akron's NAACP chapter concerned.

Judi Hill told The Beacon Journal she feels the cover photo of Sheriff Steve Barry and SWAT team members posing with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani at a campaign event in August is an inappropriate use of public funds this close to an election and undermines the relationship between law enforcement and the African American community. Barry says the picture is not an endorsement for Trump, but rather was a rare opportunity for the SWAT team to get a picture with someone they were protecting.

Both Hill and Barry joined The Jasen Sokol Show on Monday.

The impact of the deadly shooting in Dallas is hitting local communities. The Cleveland Police Deparmtent has ordered officers to patrol the streets with a partner and the Akron Police Department is also following those orders.

"...officers will be only two-man cars, which for us is not typical for our daytime patrol officers. But until further notice, we will be operating on two-man cars." said APD Major Kenneth Ball.

The department has been involved in a number of training programs -- including training on implicit biases.

For the Summit County Sheriff's Office, the department is focused on remaining vigilant.

"We're going to stay vigilant," said Barry. "We've had a heightened awareness level for a while now due to the problems throughout the country and we're going to continues to proactively approach it that way."

Sheriff Steve Berry says training continues to be an important priority of the department, especially ahead of the Republican National Convention where they will be sending between 20 to 40 deputies.