Photo: Michael W. Bunch / Metro photographerFollowing the shooting of Daniel Hambrick in July — the second time a fleeing black man was shot and killed by a white Nashville police officer in less than 18 months — community groups and several Metro Council members began calling for a change in leadership at the Metro Nashville Police Department. The department, and Chief Steve Anderson, were at the center of a number of controversies related to policing in the city. For the first time, numerous elected officials were saying publicly that he needed to be replaced.

But Mayor David Briley stood by Anderson at the time. And in a recent interview with the Scene (read it in full next week), the mayor says he intends to keep Anderson on as chief if he is re-elected next year.

"The chief and I met [earlier this month] and talked about the Community Oversight Board and about the next steps that needed to take place," said Briley during the interview, which took place at his office earlier this month. "The chief was very clear that he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that it was a success. That’s the kind of commitment I think we need from the chief. I don’t think that just changing leadership at the very top is what the department needs right now. I think there is a lot of stress on the department for a lot of reasons right now, and having the chief stay there while we resolve some of these stressors I think is important to the city in terms of maintaining stability and at the same time moving forward on a lot of issues."

Anderson was named chief in 2010 by then-Mayor Karl Dean, and he's known as a savvy political operator. He has led the police department under three mayors now, and each has given him a wide berth.

Aside from the police shootings of Hambrick and Jocques Clemmons — and the department's reaction to them — Anderson has been under scrutiny for the contents of Gideon's Army's 2016 "Driving While Black" report and his reaction to it, as well as a number of smaller policy decisions that underpin the issues brought to light by the shootings and racial disparities in traffic stops. Last month, The Policing Project released its assessment of policing in Nashville. They confirmed the findings in the "Driving While Black" report and also determined that MNPD's strategy of making traffic stops at a rate higher than comparable cities does not affect crime rates.