Biography
Jack Baxter Moss is an Ohio activist arrested on July 4, 2022, in Akron during mass demonstrations following the release of body camera footage showing Akron police fatally shooting 25-year-old Jayland Walker on June 27, 2022. Moss was among approximately 49 people arrested between midnight and 5 a.m. on July 4 as protests erupted in downtown Akron. He was charged with riot (Ohio Revised Code 2917.03), disorderly conduct by intoxication, and failure to disperse (ORC 2917.04). Like other demonstrators arrested that night, Moss was jailed and held at least through the following day on what civil rights attorneys later characterized as "copy-and-paste" arrest complaints with identical boilerplate language claiming each arrestee "took part in protest that turned to violent riot" and "failed to disperse when ordered to." The Summit County Jail was set up for mass processing of protesters from this event. The city of Akron pursued these charges for nearly a year before all charges were dismissed. In a related federal civil rights lawsuit filed by 24 of the arrested protesters, the city of Akron agreed to pay $747,000 in settlements, with the complaint finding that Akron police had violated the constitutional rights of peaceful demonstrators through baseless mass arrests, beatings, tear gas, and pepper spray.