As authorities investigate the second fatal shooting of a fleeing black man by a white Nashville police officer in less than 18 months, one of the city's most prominent community organizations is calling for Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson to be fired.
Nashville Organized for Action and Hope — a group made up of 61 congregations, labor unions and other community organizations — is urging Mayor David Briley to "immediately terminate" the chief in a resolution approved by its members earlier this week. They say Anderson, who has led the MNPD since 2010, has "fundamentally failed the community" in a number of ways, from his dismissive response to the 2016 "Driving While Black" report to his handling of the Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick shootings.
In calling for Anderson's ouster, NOAH joins acting Vice Mayor Sheri Weiner, who said earlier this month that the chief should resign. Anderson has said he has no plans to do so.
The NOAH resolution — which you can read here in full — comes the same week as the Davidson County Election Commission cleared the way for a referendum on whether to create a community oversight board for Nashville police to appear on the November ballot. That vote will cap off a year-and-a-half of sustained activism that followed the Clemmons shooting. Along with calling for Anderson's firing, the NOAH resolution demands, among other things, that Briley support the Community Oversight Board legislation that will appear on the November ballot.
NOAH also highlights the fact that Officer Andrew Delke, who shot and killed Hambrick as Hambrick was fleeing a traffic stop while allegedly carrying a gun, was not wearing a body camera when the shooting occurred.
NOAH is very concerned about the failure of Metro Government and the Metro Nashville Police Department to equip the police force with body and dash cameras prior to this incident. At a NOAH Public Meeting in October 2016, former-Mayor Megan Barry committed to body cameras for police officers. The 2017 Metro Budget included funds for the purchase of this equipment. However, due to continuing delays in the selection, purchase and distribution of this equipment, today almost no MNPD officers are equipped with cameras. Had cameras been deployed to Officer Delke, there would have been more evidence available to the TBI and the public regarding the death of Mr. Hambrick.
The organization's case against the police chief, as listed in the resolution, is below:
1. In October 2016, Gideon’s Army released the Driving While Black report showing that under Chief Anderson’s leadership, black drivers were being subjected to roadside searches at more than three times the rate of white drivers even though a lower proportion of these searches resulted in the discovery of incriminating evidence.2. Chief Anderson’s response to the Driving While Black report was to claim that the authors were “morally disingenuous,” and to justify MNPD’s practices based on the tiny percentage of AfricanAmericans who commit serious crimes.
3. In February 2017, an MNPD officer shot and killed Mr. Jocques Clemmons, an African-American man, while Mr. Clemmons was attempting to flee the officer.
4. In March 2017, WPLN reported that for years MNPD had been distributing The Tactical Edge, a decades-old book with explicitly racist claims that people of color are more violent than white people, to all new police recruits.
5. In May 2017, in reviewing the Jocques Clemmons investigation, District Attorney Glenn Funk reported that MNPD’s internal investigation of the incident appeared biased in favor of the officer. Chief Anderson’s response to this announcement was to personally criticize the Deputy District Attorney who delivered this critique.
6. In June 2017, the Davidson County Grand Jury recommended that civilians be involved in investigating officer-involved shootings, and the Department of Justice recommended that MNPD establish work groups to consider development of a citizen’s police advisory board. However, Chief Anderson ignored these recommendations and opposed the creation of a Community Oversight Board.
7. Chief Anderson has obstructed the timely equipping of MNPD’s officers with body and dash cameras, notwithstanding the Mayor’s commitment to the program, the Council’s approval of the necessary funds, and the Council’s March 2017 resolution calling for deployment of cameras as quickly as possible;
8. Chief Anderson is reported to have obstructed the implementation of the “Steering Clear” program, a program devised by the District Attorney, Sheriff, and Public Defender’s Offices to divert low-level offenders charged only with driving without a license.
9. Police officers themselves have urged Chief Anderson to end policies of excessive traffic stops, but Anderson has deflected this and other input from MNPD officers regarding policy or policing strategy changes. Officers also characterize Anderson as a “dictator.”
10. In the wake of the homicide of Mr. Hambrick, Chief Anderson has lost the public trust. Many Nashville leaders now call for his termination, including the NAACP, the Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship, individual clergy, Acting Vice-Mayor Sheri Weiner, and other Metro Council Members.
The Scene
profiled Anderson in April 2017, following the Clemmons shooting and
the death of Officer Eric Mumaw, during what we called then "the most turbulent period in his tenure" as chief. Things have hardly calmed down since.
