Nashville PD says no to TBI inquiries of police shootings

Police chiefs in Nashville and Knoxville want state law enforcement agents to stay out of the investigations when their police officers kill other people.

The top cops in two of Tennessee's largest cities oppose a bill proposed before the Tennessee General Assembly that would make the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation the lead investigator when police anywhere in the state use deadly force.

Lawmakers backing the bill and the chiefs all say they want to bring transparency to police killings, which are rare and most often are shootings. But they disagree on how to do it.

Police use of force is at the forefront of national discussions after the recent deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9, 2014, and the July shooting of unarmed 19-year-old Darrius Stewart in Memphis. Last week, the director of police in Memphis, along with the Shelby County sheriff and district attorney, agreed to let the TBI investigate when police use deadly force.

Only the Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga police departments conduct their own investigations when police use deadly force, officials said during a Senate committee meeting Monday.

A Chattanooga Police Department spokesman said Chief Fred Fletcher is having an "ongoing discussion" with TBI and the community about how best to respond, but did not answer a question whether Fletcher would oppose or support automatic TBI involvement.

"The agencies that are equipped to properly manage these investigations, and are trusted in their communities to conduct thorough, fair and transparent investigations, should not be penalized because of the current narrative of distrust in some areas of our country," Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch said during Monday's Senate committee hearing.

Other cities and counties rely on TBI, which has more resources to help smaller and rural agencies that may not have the manpower to do their own investigation. District attorneys' offices can call in the TBI, and though Nashville police can choose to do so, they do not regularly involve the state agency.

"This is not an investigative area that we want to give up," Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said. "We believe that here in Nashville we have the expertise, the resources and the commitment to the community to conduct these investigations fairly and informatively. The informative piece of this should not be lost on anyone."

Aaron said local investigators can get to scenes quicker than TBI agents, have crucial knowledge of the community and extensive training. Rausch told the committee that in-house investigators have had special multidisciplinary training on practices used by the state investigators.

Police officials in Nashville and Knoxville also say that their policies include reviews by local prosecutors, optional grand jury reviews and, in Knoxville, a citizen review committee.

In a statement, TBI Director Mark Gwyn said TBI agents use the most up-to-date practices and have special training and equipment. He said for his agency to pick up investigations in more large cities, TBI would need more resources for staff.

"If current trends persist, for example, the additional work could stretch our existing, limited resources and leave us in the unenviable position of having to turn away some cases to work these types of investigations," his statement reads.

The police chiefs say if they control investigations, they can get information to the public faster.

"These have the potential to be some of the most critical, upsetting matters that law enforcement does," Aaron said. "It's vital that you put as much information out there as quickly as you can."

Nashville police adopted that mantra when officers killed a mentally ill man with a hatchet who attacked a family at an Antioch movie theater in August. The first-responding officer, Jonathan Frith, told about what happened at a news conference the next day.

Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said how police release information varies across the state and noted no single agency tracks the outcome of investigations. She said agencies that investigate their own police shootings are allowed to release full files when an investigation ends. But the law applies differently to TBI.

"There's wide variation among police departments in the state when it comes to transparency," she said.

"I'm not saying TBI is the answer, because with TBI right now, everything is covered in the law as confidential."

She said that legal protection for TBI shows the importance of getting the right details in the proposed bill, to include legislators making TBI's records public. Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, has said he would support opening the records.

TBI leaders said they would not oppose releasing the files if told to do so by the Tennessee General Assembly. And an agency spokesman said TBI officials can confirm they are investigating, but details of their work that would end up in a final file are not releasable to the public.

Legislators say leaving total control with police departments does more damage to transparency because of public perceptions that officers also might withhold or skew information.

Kelsey and state Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, have said they will support the bill to use TBI in all investigations. Hardaway, the sponsor, said last week the details still need to be worked out. Kelsey has said he would support releasing TBI records after investigations.

"I think we have to remove even the appearance of a conflict of interest," he said.

The Nashville chapter of Black Lives Matter, a group that speaks out about issues of racial profiling and has been critical of the Metro Nashville Police Department, urged local police to turn to TBI.

"Harassment, misinformation, and distrust of the police are already major problems in black and highly policed communities," their statement reads. "To hide under the guise of preventing misinformation and distrust implies positive community-police interactions are occurring in the first place.

"If Nashville PD is following proper procedure and fully investigating cases then there should be no harm in additional oversight from the TBI."

Reach Stacey Barchenger at 615-726-8968 and on Twitter @sbarchenger.