Announcement of Charges Against Activists Ends in Debacle for MNPD

As thousands of people were gathering in Bicentennial Park Thursday afternoon for a youth-led march against racism and police brutality, the Metro Nashville Police Department announced potentially incendiary news. They'd obtained warrants for the arrest of three people charged with felony aggravated rioting after taking part in protests on Saturday. Among those three were Justin Jones and Jeneisha Harris, two of Nashville's most well-known young Black activists. 

What followed was an utter debacle. Less than three hours after MNPD's announcement, as Jones and Harris were preparing to turn themselves in, the MNPD released another statement. This one announced that the warrants had been recalled after Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk and the MNPD "reviewed additional information."

The story exploded on Twitter alongside images of the ongoing march, and criticism of police leadership was harsh. Metro Councilmember Dave Rosenberg said in a tweet that the initial charges reeked of "vengeance." If there was not more to the story, he added, the episode was "another example of why we need a new police chief." Metro Councilmember Freddie O'Connell said "we have reached the point of absurdity," adding that he encouraged Mayor John Cooper to ask for the resignation of Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson. Those statements followed comments earlier this week from At-Large Metro Councilmember Bob Mendes also calling for Anderson's removal. They all echoed activists, who have been saying that Anderson — who has resisted police reform and accountability — should be fired for several years now.  

Asked for additional comment on Thursday's events, and what led to police obtaining warrants for the arrest of Jones and Harris, MNPD spokesperson Don Aaron sent the Scene the following statement:

We have approximately 60 detectives from various components who have been going through a very large amount of video and photographs from last Saturday. The video and photographs are from surveillance systems at various locations and video and surveillance that citizens took/recorded. One of our detectives at the South Precinct was tasked with reviewing what occurred with MNPD vehicles outside the Central Precinct on Saturday after persons marched there following the Legislative Plaza protest. In reviewing video and photographs, the detective observed Jones and Harris standing on the roof of a marked police car. This same car was significantly damaged by several persons Saturday…spray painted, windows broken, etc. The detective at the South Precinct identified Jones and Harris as persons who were on the roof of the car, and Daniel Lane of Franklin as a person who spray painted it. On Wednesday night, the detective went before a Judicial Commissioner and was granted warrants for the three individuals. On Thursday afternoon, General Funk reached out to Deputy Chief Mike Hagar and inquired about the video and photos related to Jones and Harris. Deputy Chief Hagar contacted the detective at the South Precinct and asked that he bring the photographs and video to him. Deputy Chief Hagar viewed the photographs and video and had a subsequent discussion with General Funk describing what he saw. The result of the discussion was that the warrants would be made inactive, recalled, at the present time. The video and photographic material was hand-delivered to the District Attorney’s Office this morning. The South Precinct detective was acting in good faith and in accordance with procedures as part of the continuing investigation from last Saturday. The MNPD will be releasing a video clip this afternoon. A photo from Saturday is attached, as are photos of the car as it looks today.

Aaron says the claims made on Twitter by Jones and Harris that SWAT teams were sent to their homes are false. 

"That is absolutely untrue. To the best of my knowledge, no one in the MNPD, much less a SWAT officer, attempted to serve the warrants prior to them being made inactive, recalled."   

Jones and Harris have not responded to messages from the Scene asking if they want to comment further. 

DA Funk spoke to the Scene on Thursday evening to offer an explanation of what happened. In short, he says he was skeptical about the charges against Jones and asked to review the evidence they were based on. After reviewing photos and video of Saturday's events, Funk said he decided that neither Jones nor Harris had committed a crime. In their initial release, the MNPD said that Jones and Harris had been photographed walking on a patrol car and damaging it. (Other media photos, including one by Scene sister publication Williamson Home Page, show the pair standing on a patrol car, but do not show them causing any damage to it.) 

While that review was going on, however, the MNPD communications staff led by Aaron took the unusual step of announcing that warrants had been obtained for the arrests of Jones, Harris and a third individual named Daniel Lane. That step alone raised questions about the MNPD's actions. 

The department sends out regular media releases about arrests, but announcing warrants for people they are seeking to arrest is rare. Usually, such a release is sent out in cases wherein a person is possibly on the run, or in high-profile cases in which there is already media attention about whether a person will be criminally charged. (For instance, in the case of Officer Andrew Delke, who shot and killed Daniel Hambrick in 2018, the police department released a statement about the news that prosecutors had obtained a warrant for Delke's arrest.)

Aaron says that announcement was sent out "to inform the community on the continuing progress of the investigation." 

Here is Funk's statement about Thursday's events, in full:

I was notified [Thursday morning] that the police had taken out a warrant for Justin Jones, and I thought that an allegation of vandalism was actually inconsistent with the fact that he had led a peaceful protest on Saturday afternoon and then led another very peaceful protest on Monday afternoon. 

At that point I asked the police department to get me the evidence that they had uncovered in order to swear out the warrant, and then I did some follow-up investigation and the police department did some follow-up investigation. This afternoon around 3 o’clock it became clear that Mr. Jones hadn't engaged in any behavior to incite a riot and he had not committed vandalism. And that Jeneisha Harris had not committed either of those infractions either. 

Based on the status of the investigation at that time, I informed Deputy Chief Mike Hagar that I was going to recall those warrants. Then I made some phone calls to the commissioner and to the presiding judge of the General Sessions court, Lynda Jones, while Deputy Chief Hagar called the sheriff’s department to list those warrants as inactive until all the paperwork could be filed so that neither one of those individuals would be arrested.

Funk went on to say that in follow-up conversations on Thursday, he and Anderson agreed to have an assistant district attorney assigned to work with the police department on charging decisions related to the protests going forward. Funk said the prosecutor will work with police to "make sure that investigation is complete enough to go forward with any prosecution in the future and to make sure that any charges that are sworn out against an individual are supported by the facts of the case.”

Asked about calls for Anderson to be removed, Funk demurred.

“The police department is independent of the district attorney’s office," he said. "We rely on police department investigations, and in most cases, police officers are witnesses who testify in court. Because we are independent, it would not be appropriate for me to make a statement with regards to Councilman Mendes and Councilman O’Connell’s comments. But I do think it’s a very positive step that the chief has invited an assistant district attorney to participate in the charging decisions that are taking place on the protests that happened last weekend.”

After the charges against Jones and Harris were dropped Thursday afternoon, Jones tweeted that "in this case, justice beared out but we have to make sure that it works for all. That is why we protest."

In her own tweets, Harris said, "you can try and jail the revolutionary but you will not jail the revolution" and thanked people who had reached out to offer their support. On Saturday night, protesters toppled a statue of Edward Carmack, a white prohibitionist who had incited violence against the newspaper offices of black journalist Ida B. Wells. On Thursday, Harris was photographed crouching on that spot with her fist in the air.