Biography
Devonte Clark (also identified as "Devante Clark" in court filings) was arrested by the Akron Police Department in the early morning hours of July 4, 2022, during mass protests that erupted in Akron, Ohio following the June 27, 2022 police killing of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old unarmed Black man shot more than 60 times by Akron officers during a vehicle chase. Clark was charged with riot (ORC 2917.03), disorderly conduct (ORC 2917.11), and failure to disperse (ORC 2917.04), charges that were filed against nearly all of the 61 protesters swept up in mass arrests between July 3 and 7, 2022. All 61 arrestees were formally booked into Summit County Jail, where detainees were held for at least 24 to 48 hours, denied medical care, chained together, and subjected to conditions a federal lawsuit later described as unconstitutional. Clark is identified as a plaintiff in Harris et al. v. City of Akron, a federal civil rights suit filed by the firm Friedman, Gilbert + Gerhardstein on behalf of 24 protesters, which alleged that Akron police officers subjected peaceful demonstrators and bystanders to baseless mass arrests, beatings, tear gas, and pepper spray, and that the city then put them through nearly a year of criminal litigation before all charges were dropped or ended in acquittal. In February 2024, the City of Akron agreed to pay $747,000 to settle the lawsuit with 22 of the 24 plaintiffs. The protest arrests were part of a broader pattern of law enforcement retaliation against demonstrators calling for accountability in the Jayland Walker killing.