AKRON, Ohio — Activists are calling for broader reforms of the city’s police department as frustrations grow over three officer shootings of Black men in recent years.
Their demands come at a time when the U.S. Justice Department is retreating from reforming departments. Its key tool has been the use of federal consent decrees — court-enforced agreements once seen as an important step in reforming troubled departments.
The Justice Department used a consent decree in Cleveland, which remains under a decree filed in U.S. District Court in 2015. City officials have pushed to be released from it…