Any time a Metro Nashville police officer shoots and kills someone, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will be the sole agency conducting a criminal investigation into the incident, according to the terms of an agreement reached Friday between the Metro Nashville Police Department, the TBI and Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk.
The Memorandum of Understanding follows weeks of discord between the law enforcement agencies over the investigation into the fatal shooting of Jocques Clemmons by Metro Officer Josh Lippert earlier this year. Although Funk had called in the TBI to take over the investigation, MNPD had continued its own investigation, leading to a conflict that prompted the TBI to question whether they could participate in any such investigations in the future.
In a release late Friday afternoon, Mayor Megan Barry's office announced the agreement, reached after discussions that included her and Funk. The MOU clarifies what had become the primary issue in the Clemmons investigation: "The MNPD will not conduct a separate criminal investigation," the mayor's office explains, "but may conduct a simultaneous internal or administrative investigation unless there is a reasonably foreseeable likelihood that such investigation would interfere with the TBI’s criminal inquiry."
Metro Legal Director Jon Cooper clarifies for Pith how that would work and, particularly, who would make the call as to whether a part of MNPD's internal investigation interferes with TBI's work.
"TBI would determine whether a component of the internal investigation would likely interfere with their criminal investigation," Cooper says. "MNPD agrees not to proceed with the components of an internal investigation that would likely interfere, but can continue other parts of the internal investigation that would not interfere."
While the MOU rules out the parallel investigations that Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson had pushed for, it does preserve a role for the MNPD in relaying information to the public and allows the department to get regular updates from the TBI.
“The MOU I signed this afternoon is specifically tailored to Nashville and, as Mayor Barry and I agree, is in the best interest of Nashvillians,” Anderson says in the release from the mayor's office. “This agreement helps to ensure that I will have accurate and timely information with which I can make any necessary decisions regarding the operation of the police department, and will be able to speak with community leaders with specificity as to what occurred. I appreciate the TBI’s words of respect for the MNPD as we have gone through this process. As I have said, I hold Director Gwyn and his staff in the highest regard.”
In its release, the mayor's office says, "the MOU agreed to by the DA, TBI, and MNPD does not impact the ongoing TBI investigation into the shooting of Jocques Clemmons by Officer Joshua Lippert."
"The MNPD completed their separate investigation on March 23, and the TBI investigation is still in progress," the release says.
That means Funk will soon be in the position the MOU is designed to keep him out of in the future — being in possession of two files detailing separate criminal investigations of the same incident. Barry spokesman Sean Braisted, however, told the Scene Thursday that "the MNPD notified the TBI two weeks ago that their investigation was complete, and the TBI did not express any problems with the integrity of their case when they met with the mayor last week."
