Biography
Devonna Culver was arrested by the Akron Police Department in the early morning hours of July 4, 2022, during mass protests that erupted after the city released body camera footage of the police killing of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man who was shot 46 times by eight officers on June 27, 2022. Culver was charged with riot (ORC 2917.03), disorderly conduct (ORC 2917.11), and failure to disperse (ORC 2917.04), all misdemeanors. Along with approximately 49 other protesters arrested during the demonstrations, Culver was booked at Summit County Jail in Akron, where detainees were held for more than 36 hours without arraignment, denied access to medications, and unable to make phone calls. Culver became one of 24 named plaintiffs in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Akron and its police department, which alleged that officers subjected peaceful demonstrators and bystanders to unlawful mass arrests, beatings, teargas, and pepper spray as a retaliatory suppression of First Amendment-protected activities. The City of Akron settled the lawsuit in 2024 for $747,000. The criminal charges against Culver and other protesters were eventually dropped or resulted in acquittals, consistent with the broader outcome across the 62 documented protest-related cases from that period, in which over 60% were dismissed and none of the remaining cases resulted in significant incarceration.