Six days ago, Gov. Bill Lee signed a law abolishing community oversight boards in Tennessee, part of a slate of legislation aimed at Nashville. After an abrupt resignation over the weekend by former Nashville Community Oversight Board chair Michael Milliner, the citizen-led police oversight body will navigate its uncertain future with a new chair, Alisha Haddock, and counsel from former ACLU legal director Tricia Herzfeld.
Milliner shared little information about his decision to resign in an email to colleagues over the weekend. He tells the Scene that he no longer had the time to commit to the position. Former vice chair Alisha Haddock succeeded Milliner as chair at the body’s May 22 meeting, referencing the state’s threat in her opening remarks.Â
“Now is the time to get in touch with your councilmembers,” Haddock told colleagues on Monday afternoon. “Now is the time to help protect and establish a community oversight agency in Nashville. We have the power. We can do it.”
Herzfeld will help the body navigate legal repercussions of the state threat but did not comment on future litigation. “The new law is very complex,” Herzfeld tells the Scene. “It has a lot of requirements and deadlines that will require a lot of changes for how the COB will function in the future.”
”There’s no intention of filing suit,” COB member Makayla McCree tells the Scene. “We have counsel to guide us through this process.”
While Herzfeld and the COB weigh the full scope of the new law, groups like the NAACP are discussing legal recourse on behalf of Tennesseans’ civil rights. Venita Lewis, president of the Nashville branch of the NAACP, declined to comment on a specific legal strategy to the Scene while the century-old civil rights organization discusses a coordinated statewide response.Â
“The NAACP is definitely concerned about the COB and its direction and role as it relates to police oversight,” Lewis tells the Scene. “We would prefer having the COB to help field complaints about the day-to-day complaints about mistreatment, unfair stops, aggressive stops, blatant killings and police violence.”
The killings of Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick by Metro Nashville Police Department officers fueled the referendum that established Nashville’s COB in 2018. Since then, it has fielded and investigated civilian complaints of police misconduct despite significant pushback from law enforcement organizations. At times, COB members have alleged institutional obstruction from police, including slow-walked information requests and misleading communication. In April, state lawmakers passed legislation stripping community oversight boards of standing and power in the state, a law that applies to Nashville’s COB and Memphis’ Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB).
