After Nashville police shot a man Wednesday morning, the department and Community Oversight Board sparred through competing news releases that paint different pictures of how the scene was handled.
The Community Oversight Board first issued a news release Wednesday afternoon that called upon the Metro Nashville Police Department to be more cooperative with the group.
It states when COB Director Jill Fitcheard arrived to the North Nashville shooting scene early Wednesday morning, she and other staff members weren't briefed for two hours while investigators with MNPD’s Office of Professional Accountability were granted access to the scene immediately.
This isn't the first time the COB has criticized the police department's handling of officer-involved shootings since its formation last year, nor the first time the two agencies have struggled to cooperate with each other.
Weeks ago when an officer shot a man in the Jones-Buena Vista neighborhood, the COB condemned the MNPD for not informing them that an officer shot a citizen and instead only told them that a domestic incident had occurred.
The COB's accusation of unfair treatment Wednesday was met with pushback from Office of Professional Accountability Director Kathy Morante who said in a news release that she was "perplexed" by the COB staff's claim that they were treated differently in their access to the scene. She said she didn't receive immediate access and instead stood with COB staff members for hours while they waited for their briefing.
Morante said a few minutes before 9 a.m., Fitcheard and other COB staff members left the scene because it "was a waste of time." Shortly after 9 a.m., a MNPD captain arrived to discuss the shooting with them.
Morante said she then called a COB staff member to let them know the briefing was beginning, but they chose not to return to the scene. She was briefed at 9:15 a.m. and gave a COB staff member a phone number to contact the captain for a remote briefing.
The MNPD news release stated that another officer tried contacting COB staff multiple times after 11:30 a.m. to do a walk-through of the shooting scene with them, all of which were ignored. As of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, neither officer had heard from COB staff.
The COB called for the MNPD to adhere to their memorandum of understanding and asked Mayor John Cooper to publicly demand the police department's cooperation.
MNPD provided portions of the memorandum of understanding in their news release, which explains that the agreed upon terms included not allowing the COB immediate access to the scene until it was secure to avoid compromising the investigation. Because both the MNPD and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation were investigating the shooting, it was "meticulous and lengthy" since an officer shot someone.
“Insufficient notification to COB staff seeks to erode progress while undermining the still healing trust between the Nashville community and law enforcement,” said COB Chair Ashlee Davis in the release. “The (memorandum of understanding) is clear, prescriptive and should be followed by all parties.”
Reach Brinley Hineman at bhineman@tennessean.com and on Twitter @brinleyhineman.
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June 04, 2020 at 05:18PM
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Nashville police, oversight board spar over shooting scene through news releases - Tennessean
"Scene" - Google News
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