NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Mayor’s office today released a report from the Policing Policy Commission with community recommendations to reduce force, build trust, and enhance public safety.
The Commission was created in August, in response to a call from former President Barack Obama for U.S. cities to review use of force policies and reimagine policing after the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others.
Its members included a diverse group of civic leaders and community members.[1] Former Mayor Karl Dean and Judge Richard Dinkins graciously agreed to serve as co-chairs of the Commission. After Judge Dinkins stepped down from the Commission for health reasons, retired Tennessean reporter, editor, and columnist Dwight Lewis agreed to help lead this initiative.
Mayor Cooper asked the Commission to produce recommendations that would reduce police use of force, improve trust across all of Nashville’s communities, and enhance public safety. He also expressed the hope that the Commission’s recommendations would serve as a blueprint for Nashville’s next Chief of Police.
Process
To undertake this work, the Policing Policy Commission was divided into three committees – Communities, Workforce, and Policy. Each committee elected its leadership.
The Communities Committee elected Judge Melissa Blackburn as chair and YWCA President and CEO Sharon Roberson as vice chair.
The Workforce Committee elected End Slavery President and CEO Margie Quin (a former police officer and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent) as its chair and a Stand Up Nashville representative and former operations manager for the Global Black Lives Matter Network, Whitney Washington, as its vice chair.
The Policy Committee elected then-Community Oversight Board Chair Ashlee Davis as its chair and Nashvillians Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH) representative Amanda Lucas, a psychotherapist and former probation officer, as its vice chair.
Committees met virtually on a weekly basis. All told, they logged more than 66 hours of deliberations. They convened four extra-committee briefings (virtual brown bag lunches) and heard from nearly 40 subject matter experts, ranging from Nashvillians with lived experience to national policing experts.
The Commission also created a data working group that met weekly. It included representatives from each committee as well as representatives from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and the Community Oversight Board (COB), the independent, Charter-created entity approved by Nashville voters two years ago.
All committee meetings were recorded and are available for review on the Metro Nashville website.
The Commission identified four outcomes or results that for the MNPD to achieve. In the opinion of the Commission, achieving these results will put the MNPD on a path to reduce the use of force, build trust across all of Nashville’s neighborhoods, and enhance public safety.
Here are the desired results:
- The MNPD collaborates with residents, neighborhood associations, non-profits, faith-based institutions, business and community groups, and with other government departments and agencies.
- The MNPD better reflects the diversity of the city it serves at every level of the organization.
- The MNPD works to eliminate disparities in the application of all types of use of force and issues regular reports around the use of force, while also providing information to the COB to conduct its core oversight responsibility.
- MNPD officer training, skills, and behaviors, as well as department culture, reflect a commitment to consistent and respectful interactions with all Nashvillians, especially residents of color, as part of a concerted effort to eliminate disparities in the use of force. In particular, MNPD must build trust with African Americans, Muslim Americans, immigrant-origin communities, and the LGBTQ+ communities.
The Commission further recommended that in all its training, procedures, and policies, the MNPD reflect the following values and actions:
- Collaboration. Neighborhoods identify public safety priorities for the MNPD, and the MNPD addresses those needs not only through law enforcement but also by forming partnerships with residents, neighborhood associations, non-profits, faith-based institutions, business and community groups, and other government agencies.
- Diversity and inclusion. The MNPD prioritizes increasing racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual identities and orientation diversity at every level of the MNPD and recognizes that greater diversity will increase trust and enhance public safety for Nashville-Davidson County residents. The MNPD becomes a department where all Nashvillians are welcome and feel comfortable – as officers, civilian staff, residents and community partners.
- Human dignity. The MNPD recognizes that the disproportionate rate at which force is used against residents of color undermines trust. The MNPD prioritizes efforts to eliminate disparities in use of force by training and supervising officers to ensure consistent and respectful interactions with all Nashvillians.
- Transparency. The department provides timely public reports on use of force and recruitment efforts and recognizes the oversight role for the Community Oversight Board spelled out in the Metro Charter.
“As the Mayor of Nashville, I enthusiastically share and support these common goals,” said Mayor Cooper. “I look forward to presenting these goals and recommendations to our next Chief of Police, as a blueprint for a Nashville model of public safety.”
“This is one of the best projects I have been a part of — for all the people of Nashville,” said Policing Policy Commission co-chair Dwight Lewis. “I am so honored to have been a part of it and to see a diverse group of fellow Nashvillians put in so much thought and time as to how to make our city’s police department much better than what it is today.”
“I am very thankful to Mayor Cooper for creating such a diverse and representative commission to examine issues of great importance to Nashville,” said Policing Policy Commission co-chair Karl Dean. “The commission members worked many hours in a collaborative manner to produce a report that will be highly useful to the new chief of police.”
Policing Policy Commission Members
Policing Policy Commission members reflect the diversity of Nashville.
- Karl Dean, Co-Chair of Policing Policy Commission, Former Mayor and Public Defender of Nashville
- Dwight Lewis, Retired Tennessean reporter, editor, and columnist
- Ashlee Davis, VP, AllianceBernstein, Former Chair of Community Oversight Board
- Phil Ponder, Former Councilmember
- Beth Seigenthaler Courtney, Managing Partner, Finn Partners
- Russ Pulley, Councilmember
- Jennifer Gamble, Public Safety Committee Chair
- Bob Fisher, Belmont University President
- Whitney Washington, Campaign Organizer Stand Up Nashville
- Melissa Blackburn, Judge of Division II General Sessions Court
- Bob Allen, Former SWAT Team Instructor, Royal Range USA, Fraternal Order of Police
- David Esquivel, Partner, Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
- Mac Huffington, Founder & Owner, Mac Productions
- Leshaun Oliver, Police Captain, Vanderbilt University Police Department
- Juliana Ospina Cano, Executive Director, Conexión Américas
- Margie Quin, CEO, End Slavery Tennessee
- Robert Sherrill, CEO & Founder, Imperial Cleaning Systems/Impact Youth Outreach
- Dr. Chris Jackson, Pastor, Pleasant Green Baptist Church
- Sabina Mohyuddin, Executive Director, American Muslim Advisory Council
- Phreadom Dimas, Youth Leader, Oasis Center
- Darrell Talbert, President, Icon Entertainment Group
- Larry Woods, Chairman, Woods & Woods Attorneys at Law
- Jimmy Greer, Pastor, Friendship Missionary Baptist Church
- Tom Turner, President & CEO Nashville Downtown Partnership
- Reggie Miller, President, National Black Police Association Nashville Chapter
- Nawzad Hawrami, Manager, Salahadeen Center
- Meera Ballal, Founder, Women’s Healthcare Initiative
- David Fox, Financial Markets Trader, Former Chairman of Nashville Board of Public Education
- Rachel Freeman, President & CEO, Sexual Assault Center
- Clifton Harris, President & CEO, Urban League of Middle Tennessee
- Torry Johnson, Former District Attorney of Metro Nashville and Davidson County and Professor, Belmont University College of Law
- Demetria Kalodimos, Executive Producer, Nashville Banner
- Lonnell Matthews, Juvenile Court Clerk, Davidson County Juvenile Court
- Amanda Lucas, LCSW, Criminal Justice Member, Nashville Organized for Hope and Action (NOAH)
- Bruce Maxwell, Pastor, Lake Providence Missionary Baptist Church
- Sharon K. Roberson, President & CEO, YWCA
- Larry Turnley, Lead Violence Interrupter and Community Outreach Coordinator, Gideon’s Army
- John R. Faison, Pastor of Watson Grove Missionary Baptist Church
- Manuel Delgado, Owner, Delgado Guitars
- Gary Moore, Former State Representative, Retired Nashville Fire Department, IAFF Local 140
- Worrick Robinson, Member, Robinson, Reagan and Young PLLC
- Eli Foster, Blue Ribbon MNPS Teacher
The report is attached here. To read it online: https://www.nashville.gov/Mayors-Office/Public-Safety-and-Justice.aspx
