Metro Police to Stop Issuing Racist Book to New Recruits

New recruits at the Metro Nashville police academy will no longer receive a decades-old book with outdated attitudes about race and policing as part of their standard issue reading material.

"There was a portion of materials that should not have been there," Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson told Mayor Megan Barry during the department's budget hearing on Thursday. "I'll just describe that as an extreme oversight."

"So that is no longer part our training materials and it is no longer part of what we do?" Barry asked.

"It was not used in training, but it was part of the materials that were distributed and it should not have been," Anderson said, adding that the department was "painfully aware" of the controversy caused by the book and that "it won't happen again."

The department's use of Tactical Edge came to light through a WPLN report earlier this week that highlighted passages like this one:

The book tells officers to be wary of an increasing population of minorities, which it says are “disproportionately associated with criminal violence.” It claims that public schools are churning out kids with criminal tendencies and that preschoolers left in day care are 15 times more aggressive than other children. It also says that most police training will always fall short of what’s really needed.

It sums the chapter up with these words: “On the street you will meet the human beings, the weapons, the mentalities behind the dismal facts above. They are waiting for you. Either you or they will have the edge.”

WPLN's report came a week after Anderson wrote a letter to the Metro Council slamming a report last year from Gideon's Army that showed significant racial disparities in traffic stops and searches. Anderson "categorically" denied that "racial profiling is an element of any MNPD policing strategies," a statement that might reflect MNPD training but at the very least seems at odds with a book the department was issuing to each and every would-be officer.

Anderson's announcement that the book will no longer be used also represents a reversal of the defensive posture the department had adopted when pressed about the book by WPLN.

Capt. Keith Stephens, who's in charge of the Nashville Police Academy, says the department uses only some sections of Tactical Edge for topics like crisis response, stress management and mental conditioning. He adds that it’s augmented by more than 200 hours of academy training.

“I don’t believe [the book] is controversial,” Stephens says. “The part that you are talking about is not what is instructed by the Metro Nashville Training Academy.” Stephens recalls being issued the book when he went through the academy back in 2002. Nashville Police could not tell WPLN when the book was first used in the academy curriculum.

For advocates who have long called for MNPD to use body cameras, Thursday's hearing also brought some welcome news. Anderson presented a $50 million plan that would outfit every Metro police officer with a body camera and a new dash camera system for police vehicles, most of which currently have no recording capability.

Anderson is also requesting funding for 128 new officers, largely to deal with issues related to Nashville's rapidly growing population.

You can watch the full hearing here:

%{[ data-embed-type="oembed" data-embed-id="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9CELv-N4X4" data-embed-element="aside">