Tough Questions, Frank Answers at Town Hall Meeting On Ferguson

“This is your police department," Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson told a packed house at Mt. Zion Baptist Church Thursday night. "Make no doubt about it, myself, the commanders, the other captains here are being paid to manage it for you.”

Over two hours of a town hall meeting with police, local lawmakers, and community leaders, called in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown and the ensuing crisis in Ferguson, Mo., it was clear that's exactly how the largely African American crowd expects it to work. Speakers mixed praise for the chief and his department with a forceful airing of difficult truths about a city that has perhaps been blinded by positive national attention in recent years.

With precinct commanders and captains seated like a choir behind the pulpit, a panel of black community leaders including pastors and legislators answered questions from Mt. Zion senior pastor, Bishop Joseph Walker, before taking questions and comments from the crowd. 2015 Mayoral candidates Megan Barry, Jeremy Kane, David Fox, and Charles Robert Bone were in attendance but did not address the crowd. Other legislators in attendance included state Sen. Thelma Harper, state Rep. Harold Love, Jr., and Metro Councilwoman Erica Gilmore.

Mayor Karl Dean was invited but couldn't attend due to a previously scheduled event. He was hosting the last regularly scheduled Walk 100 Miles With Nashville community walk at Bells Bend Park. Dorinda Carter, who will soon take over as a spokesperson for the District Attorney's office, was there representing DA-elect Glenn Funk.

Early on, the town hall provided a chance for the first response from a local official to the events in Ferguson, when Walker asked Anderson directly: “People want to know. What about Nashville, what about our police department, would have been different?”

Anderson walked through the events in Ferguson, particularly the actions of police there, and was unreservedly critical. Here is his response in its (near) entirety:

Let’s just start talking about Ferguson. You need to hear my thoughts on that. I’m somewhat critical of what’s gone on in a fellow police department. We had the incident, the shooting, hopefully to answer part of your question we would have been able to diffuse that situation here in Nashville because of our training and because of the way these commanders conduct business, that it might not have happened. Hopefully. Now I don’t know that. There’s a lot of things I don’t know. I don’t know what happened in the street that day and you don’t either. And that’s a problem. That’s a real problem. We’ve heard accounts. But we’ve not heard from that police department. Within an hour, there should have been some preliminary statement to the community. I think many of you — Don Aaron is here with us tonight. Don Aaron does our communications and makes sure that message gets out and Don has a saying. ‘If it’s good news get it out there fast, if it’s bad news get it out there faster.’

Now, had that have happened, there might have been at least some little peace amongst the people. But that didn’t happen. Put that together with not releasing the officer’s name. Now, he’s a public officer. I understand in the first few minutes, maybe in the first few hours, if there was some unrest, making sure that officer was safe, his family was safe. But after those precautions were taken, why not release the name of the officer? When you keep secrets, it just sort of smells of conspiracy. So there was no good purpose served there.

The video, that’s on everybody’s mind. That video might be relevant at some later proceeding, if there’s a trial in place. But it served no purpose at that moment to release it. So that further added fuel to the fire.

The police response as I saw it on TV, in my view, was not appropriate. People have a right to be heard. People need to be heard. People need to know that they’ve been heard.

This is your police department, it’s not my police department, I merely manage it for you. So our role here in Nashville would be to facilitate that demonstration, that protest. We try to meet with organizers beforehand, and sort of get some ground rules. We say to them, we’re gonna let you break the law a little bit. We’re gonna let you block the street. You know, at some point we’ve got to stop that, but we want you to get your message out. So those things were not done and those things continue to boil and boil and boil.

So my message to you tonight here in regards to that is we’ll be there with you. If you need to march, if you need to protest, if you need to get a message out, we’ll be there with you. Now, we just ask a little cooperation and respect for property, people and other things, but we want to be with you.

Anderson's comments were preceded and followed with unflinching accounts of questionable-at-best interactions with police, and pointed questions from neighborhood residents to members of the Public Defender's Office who declared in no uncertain terms that the ideals espoused by some political leaders don't play out on the ground or in the courtroom. Questioners pressed Anderson about

, and the accountability process within the department, as well as minority representation on the police force and the number of Nashville officers who actually live in the community.

The latter issues are ones that have been identified as contributing factors to the present and historical issues between police and the black community in Ferguson. Anderson's answers showed there are gaps here as well. While the city's African American population sits at around 28 percent, according to the most recent census data, Anderson said African Americans make up 11 percent of the sworn police force. As for Davidson County residents on the force, Anderson said MNPD hovers around 50 percent. On both matters, he encouraged the crowd to help the department recruit officers that would improve those numbers.

Early on, Pastor John Faison, who is black and serves as senior pastor of Watson Grove Missionary Baptist Church, shared the story of his first experience with police in Nashville two years ago.

“I was driving a rental car because I was in town for one night," he said. "Driving a rental car, got pulled over by the police. Many of you probably think I’m 17…they did too. I was pulled over not for speeding, not for any infraction, but rather because they indicated that I had thrown a cigarette butt out of my car window. If you know me, you know I’m a health nut. I don’t smoke. My car doesn’t smell like smoke. But they used that to profile me and to pull me over. Asked for my license and my registration. I gave it to them and I asked why I had been pulled over and they told me about the cigarette butt. Then they asked to search my car and I refused because you had no probable cause to do so. But they did check my license and my registration, came back and they let me go. Welcome to Nashville.”

Nevertheless, Faison said he was encouraged that when he shared his experience with Anderson and others at the department, they were receptive and listened to his experience without jumping to the defense of the officer.

Later, Faison pushed back against "respectability politics" in response to a question from a black man about how the community is "teaching our young people to look, and approach the police and how to present ourselves.”

“I think it’s a great question and one that we need to wrestle with," Faison said. "I remember having a conversation with my father. It was a painful conversation with him, but it was one that needed to be had so I could survive. I remember him telling me, when you get pulled over, keep your hands at the 10 and the 2. Keep your hands at the 10 and the 2, and if you are reaching for your registration in the glove compartment, make sure you tell the officer ‘I’m reaching in the glove compartment for my license and registration.’ Do that to this day. Have to have that conversation with my sons and my daughter. Now, unfortunately, the reality is I have to have a conversation with my children that caucasian fathers don’t have to have with theirs. That’s the reality. We have to broach the subject of blatant criminalization of African American males. We cannot have this discussion without stepping there."

"The other piece of this is, whenever there’s an incident like this we step into an area, what I call ‘respectability politics.’ And respectability politics says that Mike Brown was shot because his pants were hanging down or because he looked like something that intimidated or came across as aggressive to the officer. When the truth is, Dr. King wore suits when he went to jail. C.T. Vivian had a suit on when he was assaulted. So it’s not necessarily what we wear, it’s the criminalization and the demonization of black males and black sisters. And we have to address that.”

The long term goal of the gathering was to jumpstart Nashville Unites an initiative with a number of objectives including fostering dialogue and an ongoing relationship between police and citizens, and bringing community organizations that work with young men together.

At the outset, Walker emphasized those broader aims.

“Let me be very clear," he told the crowd. "I appreciate protest. But what I’m keenly aware of is that protests often times have a life cycle. They erupt like volcanos. The real work is done during the season of dormancy.”

More from the event can be found on Twitter at #NashvilleUnites.