The teen who had her arm broken by a school resource officer last fall is now suing the Akron Police Department.
Eddie Sipplen, the attorney for the girl's mother  filed suit Tuesday afternoon.

Sipplen says he filed the suit after he says he got "no response" from the city in terms of holding the officer accountable for his role in the incident.

"What the officer did was just wrong," Sipplen said.

"Rather than doing what's right, they are doing what I would feel is an effort to cover themselves and limit their liability."

Back in October of last year, the teen was restrained by an officer at Jennings CLC, because she was yelling and tearing papers off the walls. The incident came just days after the girl was transferred there.

F.O.P Lodge 7 President Paul Hlynsky says Officer Jon Morgan acted appropriately.

"As a union we stand behind the actions of the officer," Hlynsky said.

"As an officer, you are supposed to maintain control, if you tell someone to do something and they don't do it, you can't just stand around and say 'Hey never mind I didn't mean it.' "

The teen had some discipline issues at other Akron Public Schools and has attended three different schools this year.

Sipplen says its not about the actions of his client and her behavioral history, it's about the the actions of the resource officer at Jennings CLC.

"I't's not about her actions, he's the professional, he's the person who should be trained on how to deal with situations like this," he said.

AkronNewsNow confirmed Morgan was placed on leave shortly after the incident, but is now back at Jennings.

Hlynsky said the matter is still under investigation, but is confident that the court will make what he feels is the right decision.
 

Back and forth reaction continues over the Ohio Supreme Court suit by six Akron police captains, trying to overturn the appointment of assistant police chief Charles Brown by Mayor Don Plusquellic.

Akron Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 president Paul Hlynsky, appearing on the WAKR Ray Horner Morning Show on Friday, says the mayor "stepped all over the charter" by appointing Brown.

He says the union has a problem with the appointment whether Brown is a sworn peace officer or not. Mayor Plusquellic's office says that Brown is a sworn reserve officer.

"If they're saying that Charlie Brown is a civilian, then they're taking away our bargaining unit work on the labor side of law," Hlynsky told WAKR's Ray Horner. "If they're saying he's a sworn police officer, then they've violated civil service rules and basically circumvented the entire promotions process."

Hlynsky says the Akron captains were not offered a chance at the job.

Mayor Plusquellic's spokesperson, Stephanie York, says the mayor can appoint his own assistants.

"The mayor, as Safety Director for both the police and fire divisions, is in charge of the police division," York tells AkronNewsNow.com. "And he has the right to appoint any assistant he wants in order to help him administer the police division."

York says though Brown is a sworn officer, it's still standard practice for officers report to civilian leaders.

"At every level of government in the United States, safety forces report to civilians," York says. "In charge of the military is the president of the United States. In charge of Akron's police division is the mayor."

Hlynsky says those leaders don't "mingle" in the chain of command.

Hlynsky says Mayor Plusquellic "doesn't like cops, he doesn't like their authority and he doesn't like the fact that they're not afraid of him".

Akron Police, members of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, have overwhelmingly approved a change in their contract that would allow the city and Police Chief James Nice, to form an anti-violence unit.

The changes are hoped to help combat an increase in violent crime in the city. The vote in favor of the change was 285 to 31.

 The anti-violence unit would focus on preventing and responding to shootings and other violent crimes that usually spike during the summer months.

Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic announced the anti-violence initiative during his recent State Of The City address. Plusquellic wanted to begin the anti-violence effort with summer coming on, traditionally months with increased violent crimes.                                                 

Chief Nice tells AkronNews Now how the unit would operate. " I'm combining the folks who work narcotics. We previously had narcotics working in different levels. What I wanted to do is combine those units with our vice officers, and have them all under one captain, so that they'll be able to talk to each other, making decisions about who's working what targets."

 Nice says there's been a duplication of work under the current structure. "We had individuals working the same people in our gang program, in our narcotics program with the County. What has to happen is they need to be on the same page. They need to be talking to each other and working the plan as one team , not as multiple teams with different objectives," says Nice.  

 The Chief says his plans would also have narcotics officers on duty at night and during weekends for the first time.

He hopes to have the new unit up and running by May 1st.

FOP Lodge 7 President Paul Hlynsky told AkronNewsNow earlier this week that while he had no problem with the contract change, he didn't believe forming a special unit to fight violent crime would be as effective as adding more officers to a depleted police department.

Previous Coverage:

Akron Mayor's Plan to Eliminate Community Violence

Akron Police And FOP At Odds Over Streamlining Police

Akron Police And City Reach Tentative Deal

Looks like Akron and its police union have come to terms on an amendment to their contract.

FOP Lodge 7 President Paul Hlynsky tells AkronNewsNow.com, he's not ready to reveal details of the tentative deal, until he discusses it with all FOP members.

In recent months, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic has requested the department's new chief, James Nice, examine ways to better staff officers to combat crime.

Follow AkronNewsNow.com for the latest developments on this story as more information becomes available.

Akron's police union is responding to comments made by Mayor Don Plusquellic about the mayor's proposal to form an anti-violence police unit.

The mayor was a guest on the 1590 WAKR Ray Horner Morning Show Tuesday, defending his ideas and blasting the FOP for spreading only negative information, information that the mayor says is false.

The city filed an unfair labor practice allegation based on that alleged negative publicity.

FOP Lodge 7 President Paul Hlynsky joined the program today.  He doesn't think the mayor's idea makes sense.

"I would hope the entire Akron Police Department is anti-violence," said Hlynsky.  "They're out there every day trying to stop violence."

Hlynsky says he's okay with extra training, but he's not sure how it would work, claiming that officers who used to conduct training are now on road patrol.

He also predicts that 85% of union members would currently vote against it.

"They're laughing at it," said Hlynsky.

Another storm could be brewing between Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and Akron's police union.

Mayor Plusquellic joined the 1590 WAKR Ray Horner Morning Show to detail his reasons for wanting to streamline the police department by creating an anti-violence operations unit.

He says it's in an effort to better protect the community while working with a realistic budget and staff size, but he believes the FOP's current president is spreading a different story with negative information against a cross-training initiative.

The city has filed an unfair labor practice complaint charging the comments were misleading.

"Stop listening to the bologna out there and look at what I've attempted to do. It is: provide better service to the citizens and help support the officers who are out there everyday," Plusquellic said.

1590 WAKR's Ray Horner will interview guest FOP President Paul Hlynsky Wednesday at 9 a.m.

In January, the mayor announced the new unit was needed to better communicate about serious violent crimes in the city.

During the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington, Plusquellic said he found working examples of cross-training.

The biggest problem he says he faces is perception and insists he'd love to hire additional officers.

"We're also trying to better use the personnel we have," he said. "That I think is vitally important in this world that we live in with federal and state cuts coming at us faster than I've ever seen."

In one example, Plusquellic described the narcotics unit's shift as an issue to address.

"Do you think it's fair to you, that we have had many, many, many, weeks and months of having no narcotics undercover officers in the evening? They get off at 4 o'clock," he said.

Plusquellic said he'd like to share other examples of inefficiencies in the near future.

"We need to do things now to expose this and there's other things that I'll be bringing out to the public to be able to get them to understand the real truth," he said. 

Previous Coverage:

Akron Mayor's Plan to Eliminate Violence

Akron, FOP At Odds-- Again

Paul Hlynsky has been re-elected as FOP President by members of Akron's Fraternal Order of Police -- and by a wide margin.

Results aren't official until Lodge 7's official counting later tonight, but AkronNewsNow has learned Hlynsky received overwhelming support over 62% of the vote over challenger Dan Gump.

This comes ahead of new contract talks with the city later this summer, and pits two familiar faces in the next round of Akron's police contract talks.

That's because Mayor Plusquellic -- who was just given a seventh term in office -- has seen plenty of the long-time FOP President who now starts his own eighth term in office. Both have had legendary battles, but last year's scrapping apparently did Hlynsky no harm as he won handily unofficial vote tallies after heavy voting by FOP current and retired members.