By NIARA SAVAGE | Nashville Voice
Officer Andrew Delke’s defense and the Nashville Fraternal Order of Police know they’re sinking in increasingly hot water.
Although Delke has entered a not guilty amidst being indicted for first-degree murder for fatally shooting 25-year-old Daniel Hambrick last year, it’s clear that the FOP views well-deserved justice for the Hambrick family as an imminent and viable threat.
As a result, the fraternal organization has made obviously politically-motivated moves to victimize Delke and the rest of the Metro Nashville Police department.
On Thursday morning, not long after the MNPD cut the ribbon on their new headquarters, a billboard funded by the FOP popped on Murfreesboro pike across from the street from it.
The billboard read, “The Metro Police Department is Always Hiring* – 108 officers understaffed! Employees are subject to the following working conditions: Mayor Briley’s Broken Promises and District Attorney Funk’s Political Agenda #DoBetter.”
Many believe the motivation behind the billboard was in response to DA Glenn Funk’s decision to bring a warrant for Delke’s arrest, as well as the Funk’s controversial decision to publicly liken Delke’s defense to the argument used at Nuremberg in Nazi Germany.
FOP president James Smallwood has fired shots at Funk by suggesting that the district attorney brought a warrant against Delke who was ”doing exactly what the city has asked him to do,” only to advance his own political agenda.
“We’re not going to take this anymore,” said Smallwood, as he continued to defend the FOP’s decision to spend $600 on the billboard, which was visible until 7 p.m. on Thursday.
In other news regarding the development of the Hambrick case, a judge ruled in favor of defense attorney Raybin’s request for future evidence against Delke to be sealed from the public.
Raybin said he feared that public knowledge of the details of the case could influence decisions made by the grand jury.
This suggests that evidence associated with the case would likely have worked against Delke’s highly fabricated public image of innocence.
The question remains: If the FOP and Delke’s defense are so confident that the shooting was legal, then why are they working so hard to villainize Funk, victimize the MNPD, and hide evidence from the public?
