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Kathy Morante, the longtime director of the Metro Nashville Police Department’s Office of Professional Accountability, has been replaced.
The leadership shakeup comes less than two months after a former lieutenant with the internal affairs unit came forward with myriad allegations of improper and unfair conduct by top department officials. Metro has hired former U.S. attorney Ed Stanton to lead an investigation into those claims.
Extensive complaint says officials ignored department policy, manipulated investigations, lied about reforms and helped pass a law gutting the Community Oversight Board
MNPD spokesperson Don Aaron confirms the changes at OPA to the Nashville Banner, adding that Metro Police Chief John Drake “believes this change in leadership will improve and strengthen OPA operations.” Morante had led the office since 2013.
The OPA conducts internal investigations of MNPD officers accused of violating department policies. From 2018 to 2023, Nashville’s Community Oversight Board was also empowered to investigate complaints against officers and issue their own findings. After a state law dissolved the COB and other similar boards around the state, it was replaced by the Community Review Board. The diminished CRB only has the ability to refer civilian complaints to the OPA and review the resulting investigations.
As of Monday, Cmdr. Jason Starling is overseeing operations at OPA, Aaron says. Morante, who worked as an assistant district attorney in Nashville for 14 years before coming to the MNPD, will remain with the department. She has been assigned to assist cold case Detective Mike Roland with the recently reopened investigation into civil rights-era bombings in Nashville.
Det. Mike Roland will look into the bombings of Hattie Cotton Elementary School, the Jewish Community Center and Z. Alexander Looby's home
Among the allegations made by former OPA Lt. Garet Davidson is the claim that Deputy Chief Chris Gilder and Assistant Chief Mike Hagar collaborated with state Republicans to write and pass the law that eliminated Nashville’s Community Oversight Board and other similar boards around the state. Davidson alleges that Morante later held an OPA meeting and presented Gilder with a small engraved crystal trophy to recognize his work getting the law passed. The MNPD has denied that allegation. Davidson’s 61-page complaint, however, also describes the department as one rife with rank bias where leadership interfered with OPA investigations and internal policies were not consistently applied.
