Ever since that fateful St. Patrick's Day morning when gunfire took the life of an Akron man there have been questions about the death of Demetrus Vinson.
The report detailed here on AkronNewsNow.com reveals the findings of Pinky Carr, the lead assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor asked to look into the shooting by police of Vinson as he and a friend, Chance Baker, sat in Vinson's car.
Akron Police and the Summit County Medical Examiner's office had painted the police-involved shooting as a case of a self-inflicted gunshot by Vinson himself after cops stopped him and Vinson didn't want to cooperate after a night of drugs and boozing. The ME's report indicated none of the bullets fired by police, who say they were responding to the display of a gun by Vinson, were fatal. The only conclusion left, said Medical Examiner Dr. Lisa Kohler, was death by Vinson's own hand even as he sat bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the police bullets.
The family did not buy this and has questioned the conclusion and handling of evidence ever since, even going so far as to employ their own forensic investigator to review the evidence. Family spokesman Orlando Williams says Cuyahoga County has not been helpful in allowing access to the same evidence (seen here in a .pdf file) so the family's investigation is not as far along.
Mayor Plusquellic, who asked for the independent probe, didn't directly respond to questions posed by Mason's long-awaited report. Instead, the Mayor's office delivered his comments via email in an audio .mp3 file, thanking Mason for the report and noting Plusquellic considered the case now closed.
AUDIO The Mayor Comments
From a reporter's standpoint the decision of the Mayor to not deliver a more public and visible comment on this issue, which has provoked considerable debate in some quarters of the City's African-American community on the conduct of Akron's police department, was unusual. The Mayor's office notes the statement would likely have been straight-forward and limited to what the Mayor said in his "audio release".
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