Video Prompts Calls for Change in Nashville Police Procedures

By: Stephanie Carson, Public News Service – TN

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Citizens’ groups in Nashville are demanding a thorough review of police procedures and some policy changes after release of a video of a police-shooting incident last month.

In July, 25-year-old Daniel Hambrick was shot and killed in an apartment complex when he ran from his vehicle. Black Lives Matter Nashville is among the groups that have called for change, and Mia Jaye Thomas with the group said the video confirms Hambrick did not pose a threat to the officer at the time of the shooting.

“We’re told that a black person, no matter the situation, poses some severe threat to the officer, and that they are fearing for their life,” she said, “even when, in the video, we see that Daniel was running away from the officer.”

Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson said the officer fired his weapon four times, and that three shots struck Hambrick in the back. There are reports that the officer attempted to pull Hambrick over early in the evening in the same apartment complex. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation currently is working on the case.

Thomas said the shooting is emblematic of a larger problem.

“We continue to see differences in the way that black communities are policed in comparison to the way that white communities are policed,” she said.

Nashville’s Police Department has been working to hire more black officers since 2016, when a survey by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics found that around 85 percent of the force was white, while 56 percent of the population was white and a majority of the rest were black and Hispanic people.