The Community Oversight Board held a special meeting Wednesday afternoon, which had extended an invitation to Mayor David Briley, Mayor-Elect John Cooper and Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson to come together and engage in public conversation. Both mayors were unable to attend due to prior engagements, and Chief Anderson sent an email response to the topics that were to be discussed at the meeting in lieu of his attendance.
Despite the absence of the three city leaders, the Board and Metro Nashville Community Oversight staff conducted a productive meeting in the Jury Assembly Room of the Metro Historic Courthouse, which was standing room only.
The meeting focused heavily on clarifying information made public by other parties and began with a discussion of the process of Community Oversight receiving event notifications from the Metro Department of Emergency Communications (DEC). Community Oversight has recently been added to the list of departments to receive such notifications, however, the Board still needed to clarify the process.
Executive Director William Weeden explained that he met with Chief Anderson in May 2019 to request that Community Oversight be added to the list of agencies to be notified for “call-outs.” Chief Anderson advised Weeden to put the request in writing for his consideration.
Following Chief Anderson’s direction, Weeden and the Oversight Board then began to draft an Memorandum of Understanding that would include language to the Department of Emergency Communications and the Police Department regarding call-out procedures. Weeden also submitted his written suggestion to add Community Oversight to the list of those agencies to Chief Anderson in August, as a response to the Declaration of Cooperative Interaction the Chief had created.
The request was denied.
Weeden received notification from Emergency Communications Director Angela Milliken in September that Community Oversight was cleared to receive call-out notifications. This only came after Weeden pushed the matter following a police-involved shooting that took place days before and Community Oversight did not learn of the incident until hours after it had occurred.
An email received from Milliken stated:
“…while we aren’t an Police Department operation, we notify on incidents that have occurred with Metro Police and the Fire Department and work under guidelines provided by those departments for release of information and notifications. I feel it is my responsibility to ensure all involved parties are in agreement with notifications that are generated from the dispatch center, so I have been working toward that end.”
This statement led Weeden to believe that if Chief Anderson would have agreed in May to have Community Oversight added to this list of agencies, he could have done so. Though it was suggested to contact Emergency Communications directly, they would have still had to work under guidelines that were already in place by Metro Police for such notifications to go out to other agencies.
Milliken and Deputy Director Michelle Peterson were both in attendance last night and stood before the Board to clarify information and give further insight into the matter. Both parties were in agreement as to how notifications would be received going forward.
The Oversight Board also inquired about a still misunderstood issue dealing with records requests made to Metro Police Central Records.
Dr. Peter Vielehr, Research Analyst for Community Oversight, explained last night that in order to conduct research on the policies and practices of Metro Police, as stated in the Charter Amendment No. 1 of the Oversight Board, past data are needed to assess trends. Analyzing data from the recent past helps suggest which practices are effective or ineffective in enhancing public safety and will inform the Board’s policy advisory reports that aim to improve relationships between police and the community.
It has been reported that Dr. Vielehr’s requests would require millions of pieces of paper be produced to Community Oversight, take one person 150 years to do and cost $10 million. In his email, Chief Anderson stated that it would virtually cripple the Records Division and limit or curtail its daily service to the public.
Dr. Vielehr noted he has requested some of the same information prior to his employment with Community Oversight, was charged fewer, if any labor fees, and received the information in a timely manner.
All his previous requests as a private citizen led to the production of electronic documents.
One request he made as a private citizen cost him $94.55 and was received as an electronic excel file of 3,638 use of force incidents between 2008-2017. When he made the same request as an Community Oversight staff member, he was told it would cost $60,000 for labor and printing. Dr. Vielehr also requested an incident database for 2005-2012 and received a Microsoft Access database on a DVD with over 500,000 records and no labor fees applied. He made the same request, again as an Community Oversight staff member, and was given a labor fee charge of over $1 million for labor and printing. One last request included Dr. Vielehr asking for a database of all arrests made by Metro Police from 2005-present. He received an excel file for each year of arrests on a DVD and no labor fees were applied. As an Community Oversight staff member, he was quoted labor and printing fees of over $3 million.
Dr. Vielehr explained he has never requested, in the past nor present, for such data to be received as actual pieces of paper but instead in the form of a database, which is widely known to imply, electronically.
While Dr. Vielehr and Community Oversight staff are unsure where the miscommunication occurred with the Records Division, as Dr. Vielehr has made his requests using similar language as when he was a private citizen, they are hopeful the department will remain transparent and fair in distributing requests going forward.
Also present was District Attorney Glenn Funk who stated is belief in the importance of Community Oversight Board and that the District Attorney was willing to offer any assistance whenever possible. Their office has provided Community Oversight with a liaison in order to increase the communication between the two agencies.
After all official business of the meeting was conducted, the floor then opened for public comment. Residents of Davidson County stood before the board and voiced their opinions regarding the Community Oversight Board. Residents echoed voices of the past, reiterating that they support the Community Oversight Board, are here to help in anyway they can and hope Chief Anderson and Metro Police will shop up to the table.
The Community Oversight Board will conduct its next regular board meeting on Wednesday, October 2, from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at the Howard Office Building.