A Disturbing Month Raises Questions About the Culture Inside the MNPD

The Metro Nashville Police Department has been confronted this month not just about how its officers conduct themselves on Nashville’s streets and in its neighborhoods, but also about the kind of culture that has developed inside the department. The nationwide reckoning with American policing, and the disproportionate harm it does to already marginalized communities, had already led to historic protests in Nashville. But the calls for systemic change are coming from inside the department too. 

In early August, the sexual assault survivors’ organization Silent No Longer Tennessee went public with allegations of sexual assault and harassment, as well as sexist and racist comments, inside the MNPD — allegations they say were ignored by police leadership. One woman, a former MNPD officer who spoke at a virtual press conference but remained anonymous, said she had been sexually assaulted by Capt. Jason Reinbold at work. The organization says more than 20 women have made allegations of sexual misconduct inside the department. 

A day after the Silent No Longer press conference — and as the department faced more scrutiny over the arrest of a 61-year-old houseless Black man for violating the city’s mask mandate — Mayor John Cooper announced that MNPD Chief Steve Anderson’s retirement was being expedited. Anderson had initially announced his retirement in June after community organizations and Metro Councilmembers renewed calls for his ouster, but he had planned to stay until October. On Aug. 10 — after initially making dismissive statements about the allegations — Cooper called for an independent investigation, and a day later interim Chief John Drake did the same. 

“I want to be clear that I and the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department have absolutely no tolerance for sexual harassment or sexual misconduct,” Drake said in a written statement. “Any allegation of that nature against any police department employee will be taken very seriously and investigated.”

Drake added that the Office of Professional Accountability — whose credibility has also been called into question by critics inside and outside of the department — would be reviewing the Silent No Longer report. The MNPD, he said, had joined the mayor in asking Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk to request an inquiry by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The TBI confirms its involvement to the Scene. 

“We have received a request from District Attorney General Glenn Funk to investigate a reported series of sexual misconduct allegations involving several employees of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department,” TBI spokesperson Josh DeVine said. “At this time, our team continues to review any and all information available to us, as we work to determine the investigation’s specific scope. To that end, we’d encourage anyone with information that may assist agents investigating this matter to contact us at 1-800-TBI-FIND or via email at TipsToTBI@tn.gov.”

The allegations have prompted video messages of support on social media from women in Nashville — including one from the Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu, the daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Metro Council’s Women’s Caucus also demanded a “thorough investigation that treats these women fairly and that, in good faith, seeks the truth.”

But it wasn’t long before Drake was issuing another statement addressing the conduct of the department’s officers. On Aug. 20, he announced that two supervisors and an officer had been decommissioned after they carried out a raid on the wrong apartment in Edgehill. The fact that they showed up at the wrong address was bad enough, but the tactics used by officers (and captured by body cameras) were equally unsettling, by Drake’s own admission. MNPD officers rammed down the front door and entered the home with guns drawn, refusing to even allow Azaria Hines — the Black woman who lived there with her 15-year-old cousin and 3-year-old nephew — to get dressed. And all this to execute a search warrant related to a juvenile accused of a nonviolent crime. 

The department’s ostensible attempts to make amends also appeared condescending to some observers. They left groceries at Hines’ home and sent Midtown Hills Precinct Cmdr. Dwayne Greene, who is Black, to apologize to her in person. One longtime MNPD officer who spoke to the Scene on the condition of anonymity notes with frustration that while the raid did take place within the area covered by the Midtown Hills Precinct, the officers involved came from MNPD’s West Precinct. That precinct is led by Cmdr. David Corman, who is white. 

All this occurs as the city begins the process of hiring a new police chief to lead the department. 

Both situations — the allegations of sexual assault and harassment as well as the botched raid — raise questions about the sort of culture that would lead to such behavior. The city’s acting police chief himself has acknowledged that the tactics used by officers during the raid in Edgehill would be alarming even if the address had been correct. What’s more, the women who allege sexual misconduct inside the police department also say they were hesitant to report the incidents for fear of retribution or because they had, in fact, already experienced it. 

If these are the rotten branches we can see, then what about the roots?