I, Garet Davidson, rered Metro Nashville Police Department employee and OPA Lieutenant ENO #834804, hereby file this wrien complaint with the Metro Nashville Police Department’s Office of Professional Accountability on this Wednesday, May 22, 2024 by email, and I allege the following:
1: Chief Hagar has engaged in a paern of poor decision making and judgment, and failing to supervise; enabled and perpetuated harm to employees through disparate treatment and sustaining a culture which tolerates certain misconduct; decreased departmental efficiency and effecveness; managed disciplinary maers ineffecvely, unethically, with bias, and out of policy/procedure; engaged in unacceptable pracces which undermine public and departmental trust and brings discredit to the MNPD by:
a) Assistant Chief Hagar’s interference with Deputy Chief Stephen’s case (IA2023-00058), including his effort to clean the language and wrien record of the case. Chief Gilder was party to this.
b) The favorable outcome for former employee Chief Chris Taylor in which he was permied to resign without taking responsibility for his workplace conduct towards a POII officer that witnesses perceived as nearly rising to the level of an assault by inmidaon.
c) Lt Schmitz not being demoted despite how the invesgaon revealed a paern of mistreatment towards female employees and subordinates, including physically harming one, resulng in her requiring surgery (if I am not mistaken).
d) How Hagar handled now-lieutenant Hammond’s disciplinary process which resulted in her being decommissioned for nearly two years and a lawsuit in which Det. Carter, Lt. Sharpe, and Director Morante were named, despite them not being the decision makers with regards to how Lt. Hammond’s disciplinary process played out.
e) Chief Hagar’s interference with and mismanagement into the invesgaon into the Covenant photo leak and the subsequent decision to disband the enre invesgave team despite them not being responsible for the leak.
f) Chief Hagar engages in a paern of seling disciplinary cases prior to departmental hearings, resulng in beer outcomes for the accused, despite the strength of the cases and harm caused to members of the public or other officers as a result of the accused officer’s misconduct, and this subverts the department’s mission by undermining accountability of those who engage in misconduct.
g) Chief Hagar engages in a paern of deficient communicaon and the aempted delegaon of his decision-making responsibilies to others whose rank, posion, or role has never had
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that responsibility, and he appears to minimize his liability by obscuring his role when handling maers.
h) Chief Hagar superseding or ignoring chains of command, as well as giving deficient or poor instrucons in the process.
If Chief Hagar is sustained on his allegaon, I believe it would factually disqualify him from connuing to serve in his present role and rank, as well as from handling disciplinary maers in any capacity, degree, or role, regardless of any other disciplinary sancon. It may preclude him further service in the MNPD.
2: Irrespecve of Chief Hagar’s individual role, the MNPD has a broader failure in training and policy and pracce given how it manages disciplinary invesgaons and outcomes, resulng in disparate treatment of both invesgated and sanconed employees, as well as undermining the integrity of the processes, and this can be seen in the following:
a) There is paern of rank bias in invesgaons and sancons in which higher ranking personnel have more favorable outcomes than lower ranking when circumstances or allegaons are similar.
b) The strictly tailored language in documentaon (to include case summaries and other disciplinary paperwork) for employees of higher rank accused of serious violaons of policy, as well as the special aenon cases with high-ranking employees receive, shows examples of rank bias and favorable treatment of certain employees over others.
c) The lack of documentaon and subsequent terminaon of the invesgaon into Don Aaron’s treatment of News Channel 2 reporter Kenley Harge.
d) Accountability of supervisors is deficient in the MNPD, and there is pracce of transferring personnel of captain rank and above without formal invesgaons, documentaon, or findings, despite the basis for such transfers being due to paerns of poor supervisory performance.
e) Command Staff outside of OPA is overly involved in and influencing how invesgaons are conducted, and this can be used to lessen or worsen outcomes for the accused, irrespecve of the actual case facts.
f) Department pracce of intenonally keeping things not documented in wrien records to prevent discovery during legal request to produce records. Oral communicaon is priorized in order to minimize a paper trail. This also facilitates the ability of upper leadership to use the refrain “I don’t remember” during interviews, knowing with reliability that lile to no wrien evidence exists which elucidates their acons or communicaon at the me of making certain decisions.
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g) Maers of integrity are being mishandled
h) Current departmental disciplinary pracce lacks proporonality, reasonableness, fairness, and consistency in sanconing misconduct.
i) Command staff has had frequent communicaon issues and disagreements on policy sancons, resulng in several instances of officers agreeing with and signing for sancons, only to have those sancons overturned and increased later
If it is established that there is a broader failure in policy and training regarding departmental management of invesgaons and outcomes, then new policy, procedures, and process should be created which improves consistency, communicaon, transparency, defensibility, and fairness (eliminaon or drasc reducon in bias, especially rank bias).
Moreover, broader department-wide issues should not be used as cover to protect individuals idenfied as being responsible for perpetuang, sustaining, or creang these issues.
3: There are failures in annual evaluaons in which supervisors are discouraged from scoring poor performing officers as failing or are given instrucons to change scores, and MNPD’s current pracce, policy, and procedures with annual evaluaons should be reviewed and improved.
4: The Metro Nashville Police Department was involved in the process of craing legislaon (SB 0591/HB 0764) to reduce the Nashville Community Oversight Board’s ability to operate and hold the MNPD accountable, and this is part of a greater trending problem with MNPD leadership’s disciplinary pracces and aversion to oversight of any kind.
5: There has been a detrimental reducon in training hours for recruits in the training academy and in the field training program which jeopardizes the training new officers receives, as well as overall departmental operaons and employee performance, and the changed training landscape warrants a new invesgave finding and sancon.
6: There is a pracce of idenfying violaons of policy and procedure through the BWC review process, without supervisors properly addressing these in accordance with departmental policy, allowing repeat offenders to amass mulple BWC reports without facing consequences.
7: The MNPD misrepresented and falsely reported to the COB and Mayor’s office that it had a funconal Force Invesgaon Team (FIT) prior to its actual implementaon.
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8: The department has failed to implement an actual zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment and discriminaon.
9: Despite recommendaons from outside sources, such as the 2020 Policing Policy Commission Report, Metro Nashville Community Oversight, and Nashville Mayor’s office, the MNPD leadership connue to disregard aempts by external groups or persons to increase accountability and implement needed changes, and even agreed upon changes are slow to be implemented or ulmately not implemented at all.
I, Garet Davidson, am filing the above enumerated items as complaints with the Metro Nashville Police Department, in accordance with all applicable and relevant policies, procedures, and laws. Accordingly, a complaint is defined by the MNPD manual as:
4.10.010 Definions: B. Complaint:
An allegaon from any person, expressed orally or in wring, which provides a reasonable belief that circumstance(s) exist which, if proven, would amount to employee misconduct, or an expression of dissasfacon from an external source with a policy, procedure, pracce, philosophy, service level or legal standard of the agency.
I believe my enumerated items constute a complaint under the above listed definion. As addressed under Title 4: Employee Conduct within the MNPD Manual, I would emphasize the following points:
The effecveness of a law enforcement agency and its members depends upon community respect and confidence. The first goal of our department is to provide fair, efficient service to all our cizens consistent with our established mission statement, policies, procedures, rules, regulaons, ethical codes, and administrave or execuve orders as established by the department or Metropolitan Government. To advance the mission, it is vitally important that all departmental employees conduct themselves in a manner demonstrang unquesonable integrity, reliability, and honesty. Whether interacng with cizens, tesfying in any court or legal proceeding, or providing informaon in any official seng, the success of a law enforcement agency rests upon the reliability of the member represenng that agency. Therefore, all members sworn and civilian must conduct themselves in a manner consistent with policies, procedures, rules, regulaons, ethical codes, and administrave or execuve orders as established by the department or Metropolitan Government. Complete candor and fully truthful responses are required when employees are providing informaon or responding to inquiry related to any official duty. Employees must further demonstrate the professional integrity expected of them by the public in their behavior. Recognizing that a fundamental and unequivocal duty of all employees is to promote the efficient and effecve operaon of department and government
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Garet Davi son
Resp ully submitted,
in writing.communicatetoreasonable effort to provide this. lt is my preference
needed, I will make aothers due to their nature. Lastly, if additional information or specificity is
overlap or referenceI have made an effort to organize my complaints, but some of these items may
these items, then I would expect these to be adopted.
to resolving the enumerated items. lf better solutions are identified to addressprovide specific solutions
they are my effort toand issues- These recommendations are not meant to be exhaustive limitin$or
of the complaintsI have provided some specific recommendations for action(s) to be taken in light
(4.10 Discipline and Correction Action, G.)
considerotion, the ChieI of Police shall cause such omendments ond modificotions to be made.
best occomplish the mission and godls of the MNPD. l-)pon discussion, recommendation, and due
time to time in order tofromIt is recognized thot this policy should be reviewed ond omended
expedient monner. (4.10 Discipline and Correction Action, D.)
the Police Deportment is best served by resolving allegotions of misconduct in d timely ond
Government Civil Service Commission, it is recognized that the public interest dnd the mission of
Consistent with this policy, other estoblished procedures, dnd the Rules of the Metropolitan
timely ond consistent monner (4.70 Discipline ond Correction Action, B.)
employee misconduct to determine the volidity of ollegotions. Findings sholl be indicoted in o
integrity. The police department shollfoirly and importiolly investigate oll comploints obout
misconduct is cruciolto the demonstration ond protection of departmentol ond employee
investigating comploints and allegations of employeeforThe estoblishment of procedures
Action, A.)
investigote dnd impose disciplinory oction when oppropriote. (4.70 Discipline ond Correction
suggest that o member has engaged in prohibited conduct, it is the policy of the deportment to
behavior is, therefore, prohibited under opplicoble depdrtmentol policy. when circumstances
of the deportment, the efficiency of deportment operotions ond the morole of all members. Such
ond confidence is detrimentol to the public interest. lt is equolly detrimentol to the elfectiveness
this respectfromoperotion through the pursuit of lowful objectives, ony conduct which detracts
Addional details, informaon, and recommendaons for each item are below.
Pertaining to item one (1)(a):
Assistant Chief Hagar’s interference with Deputy Chief Stephen’s case (IA2023-00058), including his effort to clean the language and wrien record of the case. Chief Gilder was party to this.
The inial concern regarding Chief Stephen’s acons was so great that aer Det. Carter had interviewed Assistant Chief Greene as a part of his preliminary invesgaon into the maer, Greene immediately followed-up with Chief Drake. Chief Drake, in turn, instructed Greene to have OPA iniate an invesgaon.
The invesgaon proceeded at pace unl Det. Carter contacted Stephens in order to nofy him that he was under invesgaon. During the course of that recorded conversaon (which Director Morante and myself listened to), Stephens made it clear that he was not interested in a pre-invesgaon selement if it would require him adming to a violaon of policy. He did not feel that he did anything wrong, which is the response most accused officers give.
It is important to note that Det. Carter had reminded Stephens of the pre-invesgaon selement opon because the facts he had already collected suggested that more-likely-than-not, Stephens had engaged in a violaon of unity of command and acted with parality towards his subordinate who had been one of his close friends for many years. Det. Carter expressed a concern that Stephens may not realize the significance of his own acons and may underesmate what Det. Carter already knew.
The primary concern was that Stephens may lose credibility and trust as a supervisor—or worse, as an employee—depending on how he chose to answer during his interview. Det. Carter did this as kind of life-line or opportunity to save Stephens from potenal consequences and heartache down the road, and Det. Carter has done this in the past with other cases of employees of various ranks.
It was well within Stephens rights to decline a pre-invesgave selement. The events which followed are what derailed the enre departmental invesgaon, and they were principally guided by Chief Hagar’s involvement.
Because Chief Stephens had contacted Commander Starling and Director Morante during the course of the preliminary invesgaon into Commander Newbern’s invesgaon, Starling and Morante
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were recused from any involvement in managing Stephens’s case because they were witnesses. A new chain of command was established which included Det. Carter, then myself (lieutenant), then Commander Gilder.
One day Det. Carter came to me and stated that he had been in communicaon with Chief Hagar who advised that Stephens may be just interviewed as a witness as they were working out a preliminary invesgaon selement. Hagar was going to have Stephens come to his office and meet with him to work this out. Det. Carter created two sets of quesons one for Stephens as an accused employee (about 9 pages of quesons) and another for him as a witness (about 5 pages of quesons).
The soluon with Hagar inially sounded somewhat promising, though we had our concerns. At the end of the day, a preliminary invesgaon selement would have meant that Chief Stephens recognized he had violated policy or procedure, and he was ready to take responsibility for it and move on. There would be no need for an interview if his admission fit the known facts. He would be sanconed appropriately to close out his allegaon, but he would sll need to be interviewed as a witness because he possessed relevant informaon needed for an invesgaon into Commander Newbern’s conduct.
Det. Carter was updated that something had been worked out with Chief Stephens, and a witness interview was scheduled. The witness quesons were used, and it was apparent during the interview that Chief Stephens knew more than he was willing to admit. Specifically, he possessed the knowledge that Commander Newbern had lied to him about his relaonship with a subordinate, but he would not acknowledge that during the interview.
It was our assessment that Stephens did not want to acknowledge or admit the obvious regarding Newbern’s lie because this informaon would be used in the invesgaon into Newbern. Stephens and Newbern are known to be close friends of many years, and despite this, Stephens supervises Newbern. The addional problem with Stephen’s unwillingness to acknowledge or call Newbern’s conduct for what it was, was that a preliminary invesgaon selement requires a complete and truthful admission, full candor, and complete cooperaon with an invesgaon.
The manner in which Stephens handled his interview only reinforced the percepon of his bias and parality with regards to Newbern. To add to all this, I was soon thereaer informed that Hagar had completed a Form 311 Remedial Counseling Report with Stephens rather than a pre-invesgaon selement, and this would later be sent to me to add to the case file.
When Chief Hagar issued the Form 311 remedial counseling report to Stephens for this maer, Stephens acknowledged that Newbern had lied to him (see 2b below for Form 311 language and addional relevant for 1a). This subsequent acknowledgement was material to both his and Newbern’s invesgaon. It was my assessment that by Stephen’s acons, he would have invalidated a preliminary invesgaon selement. Addionally, he may have commied a violaon of policy for failing to fully disclose relevant informaon during his interview, and this would be a new allegaon of a policy violaon warranng being addressed.
The use of a Form 311 as if it was a pre-invesgaon selement was problemac. A Form 311 does not document a sanconed violaon of policy; it does not exist within the grid chart as a possible opon. This meant that Hagar resolved Stephens’ allegaon through a non-sanconed finding; therefore,
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there was no preliminary invesgaon selement. Stephens did not admit to any violaon of policy and was not sanconed.
This has important implicaons:
1) Stephens should sll have been interviewed as an accused officer
2) The allegaon of Stephens was not fully invesgated
3) Hagar re-directed invesgave efforts to prevent Stephens from being sanconed
4) To date, Stephens has not been disciplined for any of his conduct
5) The case against Stephens could sll be re-opened and sanconed
I was shocked when I was informed about this turn of events by Det. Carter. I was also disappointed at how frequently upper command staff failed to communicate down the chain through me. I did not have the opportunity to push back or dig deeper into these decisions with regards to this case.
Just before I rered, I reached out to Chief Gilder in order to understand more about what was expected with how to close out Stephens’ case. An allegaon had been made, but he was interviewed as a witness by Chief Hagar’s instrucons. Addional specific informaon was not obtained from him as to his culpability. Addionally, he was issued a Form 311 for remedial counseling rather than a sancon. None of these facts corresponded to any legimate way of documenng the invesgaon based upon the policies and procedures in place nor actually sanconing violaons if Stephens was entering into a pre-invesgave selement.
I forwarded a dra copy of Det. Carter’s working case summary, and I reminded Gilder during our conversaon that Det. Carter had ulmately asked a different set of quesons to Stephens during his interview as a witness than what he would have been as an accused, and this was due to our understanding of Hagar having worked out a pre-invesgave selement. Gilder subsequently reviewed the informaon, and I awaited his response.
Gilder checked with Hagar and then provided their instrucons to me in an email dated November 15, 2023. I was instructed to completed the Form 312 and mark the finding as “maer of record.” I only acknowledged I understood and did so as instructed. Problemacally, a “maer of record” finding presumes certain things, like the unavailability of witnesses, and it is used to document that a complaint was filed but could not be fully invesgated for some specific reason.
The only witness made unavailable for interviewing as a part of Stephen’s interview was Chief Stephens; Det. Carter was instructed to interview Stephens as a witness rather than an accused employee. This was a significant decision made by Chief Hagar rather than Det. Carter or I.
Det. Carter created two different sets of quesons for Chief Stephens. One set was the original, created to interview him as an accused officer. The second set was created in order to interview him as only a witness. The witness interview was structured differently, with different quesons than if he had been interviewed as an accused. The witness quesons were carefully worded in order to facilitate an interview that did not result in direct, accusatory quesons which needed to be answered with respect to his culpability in violaons of departmental policy or procedure.
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The irony of Hagar’s involvement in this case is that there were legimate concerns arising out of a percepon that Chief Stephens may have used his posion as Commander Newbern’s deputy chief to become involved in, inquire, or affect the outcome of Newbern’s invesgaon, as well as not handle chain of command communicaons and responsibilies appropriately. Chief Hagar, due to the degree and manner in which he did so, became so involved in Chief Stephen’s invesgaon that these were true of him.
As noted in the email, I was to complete the Form 312 with the following language, “This case is being closed as a maer of record with the recommendaon that DCOP Stephens be counseled regarding supervisory expectaons and how percepons of friendships and favorism can be construed as a failure to act imparally, even when no misconduct occurred.”
The language of this, in-of-itself, establishes that a policy jusficaon for a full invesgaon existed. The Department Manual states the following in 4.10.010 Definions:
B. Complaint: An allegaon from any person, expressed orally or in wring, which provides a reasonable belief that circumstance(s) exist which, if proven, would amount to employee misconduct, or an expression of dissasfacon from an external source with a policy, procedure, pracce, philosophy, service level or legal standard of the agency.
A percepon existed that could be “construed as a failure,” and this has the same policy meaning as “reasonable belief that circumstance(s) exist.” The statement, “even when no misconduct occurred,” implies that a full invesgaon was done and that an actual invesgave finding was established—which did not occur because of his involvement and hijacking of the case. Also, the invesgave finding of “unfounded” would be more appropriate if an invesgaon had truly been completed which proved that there had been no misconduct; instead, Chief Hagar chose “maer of record.”
A “maer of record” finding is not used in these kinds of circumstances. They are limited to instances when there is a significant hindrance to being able to conduct the invesgaon, such as the availability of a key witness or even the accused, such as due to a prolonged military deployment. In this case, all involved witnesses were available. It was only Chief Hagar’s direcng of the case which affected OPA being able to interview Stephens as an accused.
Again, Det. Carter and I believed based upon the facts gathered prior to DC Stephens interview, that it was a very possible outcome that Stephens had violated policy. He needed to be interviewed to finish gathering facts to be able to draw an actual full conclusion.
In this instance, the only reason it was not fully invesgated was because of Chief Hagar’s involvement in the OPA process and instrucons which came down the chain to Det. Carter or myself. While Stephens had a favorable outcome in the sense that he was not sanconed, I believe the maer remains open and demanding a full invesgaon. In a direct interview about his acons, Stephens may be able to provide a convincing explanaon of events which exonerates himself or genuinely unfounds the complaint. As it stands, quesons remain, and that is unfair to him.
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As unpleasant as the process can be for those accused, OPA’s invesgaons are designed to get as clear a picture of the facts as possible. This benefits all involved, the whole department, and the public. Officers who have not engaged in misconduct deserve strong case documentaon proving that; those who have engaged in misconduct, deserve accountability.
It is unclear why Chief Hagar would take such a vested interest in direcng the outcome of this invesgaon. My first inclinaon is some personal connecon, either as friends, peers, or perhaps Hagar is friend with Stephens’ father who has been on the department for many years as well. At the end of the day, Hagar’s decisions do not appear to be driven by policy or procedure, and they resulted in the protecon of another chief, in violaon of normal complaint and disciplinary policies and procedures.
Recommendaons:
o Reopen the invesgaon into Chief Stephens and interview him as an accused officer in order to properly finish the invesgaon. Invesgate his intenonal withholding of material informaon from the invesgator during the course of his invesgaon.
o Invesgate Chief Hagar to determine whether his involvement in Deputy Chief Stephens case was a violaon of policies pertaining to unity/chain of command, interfering with an OPA invesgaon such that the invesgave direcon was altered to protect someone accused of misconduct, violang policies and procedure for closuring a case without an invesgave-factual basis, demonstrated a rank-biased handling, and demonstrated poor judgment.
Pertaining to item one (1)(b):
The favorable outcome for former employee Chief Chris Taylor in which he was permied to resign without taking responsibility for his workplace conduct towards a POII officer that witnesses perceived as nearly rising to the level of an assault by inmidaon.
Chief Taylor was invesgated regarding how he treated Training Academy officers (IA2022- 00003). The primary incident involved him confronng a training instructor in front of a sergeant, an officer, and a civilian, in such a manner that several believed he was about to assault the training instructor.
Following this and other events at the training academy, Taylor caused certain officers to be transferred out of the training academy on shorter noce than allowed by policy, and his jusficaon for it was without merit. Addionally, Taylor was invesgated for his appearance on talk shows and for polically campaigning to be a mayor while in uniform and possibly on duty.
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As a result of the facts gathered during the course of his invesgaon, Chief Taylor was sustained on several policy violaons, including Workplace Conduct, Polical or Other Acvies, and Transfer / Bid Process In the end, Chief Hagar and Chief Drake seled the case in such a manner that Taylor was not sanconed for his treatment of the training instructor. He was not sanconed for his abusive workplace conduct.
The department oen seles cases as a maer of expedience, rather than handling them with excellence. I believe Chief Taylor’s rank helped his favorable resoluon. Addionally, I believe the fact that he had adopted one of Chief Drake’s grand-children was influenal.
Whatever the moves behind how the maer was seled, it is my assessment that it fails to send a message of accountability to those in a posion of leadership. It devalues the experience and harm suffered by employees at the hands of supervisors, and it provides an easy off-ramp for bad employees.
It was well-within the Chief Hagar and Chief Drake’s ability to direct the case to a full hearing where the case facts would have been sustained, and a finding of dismissal could have been offered rather than let him resign with only a minimal disciplinary finding in his case file.
The officers who experienced a hosle, threatening workplace deserved beer.
Recommendaon:
o Review the basis for seling this case without going to a hearing and invesgate whether a rank bias, close relaonship, or poor judgment were influenal in how it was seled (as opposed to case facts and established procedures).
o The jusficaon for seling cases prior to a hearing should be recorded in wring and veed by an objecve process and procedure to protect it from improper influences.
Pertaining to item one (1)(c):
Lt Schmitz not being demoted despite how the invesgaon revealed a paern of mistreatment towards female employees and subordinates, including physically harming one, resulng in her requiring surgery (if I am not mistaken).
Lt Schmitz’s case (IA2021-00046) is an example of one that demonstrates rank bias and/or poor decision making by command staff, as well as a failure to implement a meaningful “zero tolerance” policy regarding harassment and discriminaon of employees. It is my understand that Chief Hagar handled the
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disciplinary process aer Lt. Schmitz disagreed with the sustained findings and sancons and requested a hearing on this case.
Schmitz’s case is one that caused much conversaon around the office. For one, it was being regarded as the probable first sustained case of gender discriminaon against a supervisor in Metro Government’s history (at the very least MNPD’s history, if I recall correctly). The invesgaon had determined that Lt. Schmitz had engaged in a paern of behavior in which MNPD female employees were treated differently than male employees and harmed.
His conduct included how he placed his hands on them and invaded their space, ignored them during meengs yet entertained suggesons from male employees during the same meengs, and carelessly moved academy equipment so that it hurt a female employee who reported being made to feel ignored and invisible. The paern of conduct toward female employees culminated with the significant physical injury of that female training academy officer.
There was a general belief among OPA personnel that he should no longer be a supervisor; his ability to supervise and especially to treat female employees fairly was called into doubt. It was too likely his conduct would result in more harm (not just physical), and this would be to the detriment of the organizaon and individual employees. I myself advocated up the chain that he should be double- demoted so that he could not supervise anyone. Chief Lokey apparently agreed.
I learned that there was apparently a belief that a Civil Service hearing would overturn a double demoon in light of another past case involving Vivyonne Lee (OS2018-00006). However, her case did not involve a prolonged paern of supervisory conduct; Schmitz’s did. Command staff went back and forth on what they would give as sancons, and OPA was not involved in their decision.
At the end of it all, it is my understanding that Hagar seled the case outside of a hearing, and Lt. Schmitz was not even demoted at all—not even a single me. I believe his total suspension me was reduced too, and he was soon given an assignment which did not require him to supervise anyone.
The employee physically harmed as a result of the invesgaon was not consulted for this outcome. She had to reach out mulple mes on her own to get updates. Even though OPA was not responsible for the disciplinary outcome, OPA was tasked with meeng with her to provide an update and explain things. In my esmaon, she was just as invisible and unheard at the end of the process as she was under Lt. Schmitz’s supervision.
Looking back, this is when I truly began to experience my cognive dissonance with MNPD leadership. Their stated values, rhetoric on “do no harm,” and supposed stance of not tolerang certain conduct, all too oen, does not line up with how they actually handle their responsibilies or fulfill their roles.
Recommendaon:
o Review the basis for seling this case without going to a hearing and invesgate whether a rank bias, close relaonship, or poor judgment were influenal in how it was seled (as opposed to case facts and established procedures).
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o The jusficaon for seling cases prior to a hearing should be recorded in wring and veed by an objecve process and procedure to protect it from improper influences.
Pertaining to item one (1)(d):
How Hagar handled now-lieutenant Hammond’s disciplinary process which resulted in her being decommissioned for nearly two years and a lawsuit in which Det. Carter, Lt. Sharpe, and Director Morante were named, despite them not being the decision makers with regards to how Lt. Hammond’s administrave process played out.
It is my understanding that Assistant Chief Hagar was one of the principal decision makers with regards to how Lt. Hammond’s case (IA2018-00008) was handled administravely. While Det. Carter, Lt. Sharpe, and Director Morante would have borne the primary responsibility for the invesgaon itself, how its conclusions were subsequently used against Lt. Hammond is historically a process driven by command staff outside of OPA.
Because of this, it is likely that Director Morante primarily communicated invesgave facts to Chief Hagar and others, and these others, in turn, decided what to do from there. It is my understanding that Chief Hagar is the primary one responsible for the significant length of me that Lt. Hammond remained decommissioned. While he would have certainly referenced the invesgaon, it is well known that the MNPD has a poor history with how it treats officers accused of substanal violaons of policy.
The department once had what was commonly referred to as “the green mile,” which for years involved decommissioned officers having to remain in plain clothes in the lobby of 200 James Robertson Parkway alongside sex offenders who would come register and check-in. This was a tacc designed to crush the spirit of the accused in hopes of them seling cases or resigning all-together.
This pracce was modified, and soon thereaer, North Precinct’s public lobby was oen perceived to be the “bubble” where officers who were expected to be terminated would be temporarily assigned during their invesgaons. Somemes this was true. Officers were later rotated to different precincts, and the reputaon for a single locaon signifying an employee’s career was doomed no longer remained.
However, the pracce of delaying invesgaons and dragging them out in order to force a resignaon had not died yet. Lt. Hammond was one of the last employees to be affected by this drawing out of the administrave process, rather than compleng it efficiently. She spent much of her me decommissioned at Madison Precinct’s bubble. Lt. Hammond was decommissioned for around two (2) years.
Following Mayor Cooper’s 2020 Policing Policy Commission recommendaon, the department now aims to complete the disciplinary phase within 45 days or less. This includes conducng the departmental hearing, though the departmental fails to do this with every case; most recently, it has
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failed to do so with Sgt. Kenney’s case (IA2023-00045) which is about six months late on going to a hearing.
It is my understanding that OPA had concluded Hammond’s case much earlier than the total me she was decommissioned. Had she been permied to promptly go to a hearing, she would have been able to proceed through the process in accordance with her employee rights. Had she disagreed with the findings and if the departmental hearing had an unfavorable outcome for her, she could have proceeded with an appeal. Instead, she was forced to languish.
Addionally, the manner in how the case was mishandled and dropped impugned OPA and the invesgator. To my knowledge, there was never any formal determinaon that the case lacked merit or required addional invesgaon. If the fact finding and case was deficient, this should have been addressed formally. Instead, the whole invesgaon and disciplinary process seemed to evaporate, and this understandably further fueled Lt. Hammond’s percepon that she had been mistreated and that there had been no jusficaon for how she was treated.
I believe that Assistant Chief Hagar is primarily responsible for Lt. Hammond’s mistreatment, and his handling of that administrave process resulted in three other employees (Det. Carter, Lt. Sharpe, and Director Morante) being sued for his mishandling. If I am not mistaken, he was not named in the lawsuit. His acons brought harm to mulple other employees and is further reason he is disqualified from holding his rank or possessing the privilege of making significant decisions in the department. His decision making showed poor judgment, violated policy, and negavely affected the efficiency, effecveness, and reputaon of the department as a whole, as well as OPA specifically.
Recommendaon:
o Invesgate the reasons for why Lt. Hammond’s administrave process was drawn out and mishandled; if there are sustained findings, sancon accordingly.
o Invesgate the reasons why Sgt. Kenney’s case has been excessively drawn out past the 45-day window for conducng hearings and address accordingly.
o Create policy and procedures which require documenng in wring the basis for extending the administrave process. Just as OPA invesgaons require Chief approval to go beyond 45 days, the same should be done for every sustained case which is going to a hearing. If an extension of me is granted, the amount should be specified in wring. Once an employee has been presented with their findings and sancons, they should be able to proceed to a hearing without undue delay.
o Decommissioned officers should have their status reviewed monthly (a minimum of every 30 days) by their chain of command in order to determine whether they should be reinstated. If it is
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determined that the officer should remain decommissioned, then the basis for this should be made in wring, kept on file, and officer nofied.
Pertaining to item one (1)(e):
Chief Hagar’s interfered with and mismanaged the invesgaon into the Covenant photo leak, and the subsequent decision to disband the enre invesgave team despite them not being responsible for the leak.
Soon aer this invesgaon began (IA2023-00094), Chief Hagar called Lt. Arevalo to come to police headquarters (HQ) with some detecves in order to conduct interviews. Chief Hagar had numerous officers on standby to be interviewed at HQ, and he expected OPA to just suddenly sit down and interview them one-by-one without prior noce or invesgave preparaon. This was unprecedented.
OPA has a rigorous, me-tested process of preliminary fact gathering before ever conducng an interview with an accused employee. This process generally culminates with a body of facts and a detailed set of quesons which the detecve will reference during the course of the interview. The detecve goes into the interview room knowing many things, and they have the objecves of learning things they did not know, as well as obtaining an admission or denial about misconduct.
Hagar’s sudden demand and imposion on OPA that they immediately conduct interviews of employees he had determined may have been responsible, was unprecedented, misguided, a poor decision, a demonstraon of poor judgment, and a failure of following the unity of command and process, procedures, and training established by the department and OPA pracces. It jeopardized the whole invesgaon.
He could have sought input and requested that such a task be completed, and this conversaon could have played out as a hypothecal in which Hagar was reminded about all these issues. Instead, Arevalo was called down to HQ, in person, with other detecves, in order to begin conducng the interviews of employees on standby. I believe these employees did not even have aorneys or representaves yet, and the FOP was just being made aware of this whole situaon and was scrambling provide counsel.
While at HQ, Arevalo spoke with Hagar and requested a moment to consult with his detecves before beginning. Hagar was reportedly condescending and demanding in what he expected OPA to do. I am unsure whether those present would say his manner of conduct rose to a policy violaon of Workplace Conduct, but given what I heard reported second-hand, it warrants invesgang. Despite this, everyone from OPA was on the same page that this was not a good idea and was fraught with issues. It was going to jeopardize the enrety of the invesgaon.
During this quick meeng amongst OPA personnel, Assistant Chief Greene spoke with Arevalo. Arevalo explained his concerns to Greene, and Greene shared his concerns. Greene had previously been
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an OPA detecve, so he may have understood the erroneous decision Hagar was forcing. Hagar stepped into the meeng and Greene explained the situaon, but Hagar wanted an aside with Greene.
They stepped outside from the group, and eventually, they returned. Hagar then gave an explanaon to the group about why they would wait. He explained the very same things that Arevalo had tried to explain to him previously.
This showcased Hagar’s unwillingness to listen to those with subject maer experse only because their rank was below him. It highlights his willingness to make decisions based upon what he wants, rather than actual departmental policy, procedures, training, or best pracces.
The way Chief Hagar began this invesgaon so eagerly and so misguided, casts further doubt on the rest of how he supervised the invesgaon and its aermath. During the course of the invesgaon, Lt. Arevalo had to personally advise Chief Hagar directly about every development of the case. This was a violaon of chain of command.
The chain of command within OPA has long suffered issues with people jumping rank above and below, but ordinarily, communicaon goes up the chain. Lt. Arevalo being required to provide Hagar such direct, play by play communicaon speaks volumes about the erosion of the independence of OPA as a division which can operate freely from outside influences or constraints.
The decision to remove individuals from the team aer the invesgaon showed they were not involved and had not violated policy brought harm to those so removed. Chief Drake and Asst. Chief Hagar called the meeng with the team, during which Drake said they had not done anything wrong. He delivered this “good news” before leaving the room and allowing Hagar to deliver the bad news about everyone being removed from the team.
Removing everyone from the team on the heels of the invesgaon which did not sustain any of them on any violaons of policy is a direct and flagrant upending of the integrity of departmental invesgaons and their outcomes. The decision is one driven by the percepons of some, outside of actual facts, in order to have their desired outcome enforced. It is driven by personal percepon and poor leadership, not fact-finding.
This act sends a very strong message within the department that an OPA invesgaon can come to the determinaon that someone has not engaged in a violaon of policy and yet treat them as if they had. It does not feel fair in the least and undermines confidence in the invesgave process itself. It harms the appearance of fairness in the process.
Addionally, it is hypocrical and exposes further rank bias in light of other recent decisions. For example, Chief Stephens’ case exposed serious quesons about his ability to serve as a deputy chief. Despite this, he was not moved or reassigned in any capacity. In fact, Chief Hagar went out of his way to protect him.
There is already established precedent in the department that when a chief moves personnel despite there being no established policy violaon, that this can be overturned. This was done in the case of Chief Taylor moving Sgt. Boguskie and Ofc. Bridgeman. Aer Chief Taylor’s invesgaon was concluded, it was determined that Chief Taylor had indeed acted inappropriately and without cause in moving those individuals. They were returned to their posions. Chief Taylor had moved those
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individuals under the mistaken belief that they were undermining academy operaons, but there was not even a formal invesgaon into whether this was the case. He did so of his own prerogave and percepon of events.
In this present maer with the detecves and the decision to disband the whole team, there was an invesgaon, yet there was no policy violaons sustained against them. Despite this, leadership made the decision to disband them. The department led the public to believe that no current employees were responsible for the leak.
I understand that there may be a desire to argue that it is the prerogave of Chief Drake and command staff to do such when the totality of facts and circumstances warrant it. If facts arose which warranted disbanding the team, were they documented? Were they the actual basis?
Disbanding the team likely did more to harm departmental operaons’ efficiency and effecveness than anything actually established by the invesgaon. This would, in turn, mean the decision to disband the team was the more harmful decision for the efficiency and effecveness of the MNPD organizaon, and the leader responsible for this should be held accountable. If such facts did not exist or were not documented, I can only hope those making such poor decisions in upper leadership allow others the opportunity to make beer decisions in their stead.
Employees need to know that invesgave conclusions mean something definive. They need to be able to trust the outcomes. I am confident that the disbanded members feel their reputaon has been harmed. The act of disbanding them at the conclusion of the invesgaon would lead all within the department to reasonably conclude that those individuals must have done something wrong. Those disbanded members could argue the case proved they hadn’t all day long, but the obvious fact that leadership moved them all would argue more strongly against them.
This creates a cloud of doubt about the character, dependability, and trustworthiness of those transferred team members going forward. This is an intangible harm which could result in losing out on transfer opportunies in the future because other supervisors may not want to take the risks of having such an employee on their team. This can follow an employee around for years to come.
Command staff should be cognizant that just because they say transfers are not disciplinary in nature, the manner in how the department somemes uses them make them so in pracce, and they are oen conducted without formal documentaon, further obscuring the basis and the ability of officers to contest the basis for the transfers.
Recommendaons:
o The decision to disband the team should be invesgated and given thorough scruny, and the department should consider over-turning the decision if personnel did not engage in wrongdoing. If there is a specific individual(s) which cannot be trusted, this should be handled on a case-by-case basis rather than everyone.
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o Chief Hagar’s overall involvement and management of the OPA case should be invesgated in order to determine whether he jeopardized the case or created circumstances which made it difficult for OPA or its invesgators to conduct an objecve invesgaon.
o The basis for all department transfers should be made in wring (For example, whether it was the result of misconduct, the creaon or eliminaon of a posion, employee strengths and experience needed in another capacity, etc.)
Pertaining to item one (1)(f):
Chief Hagar engages in a paern of seling disciplinary cases prior to departmental hearings, resulng in beer outcomes for the accused, despite the strength of the cases and harm caused to members of the public or other officers as a result of the accused officer’s misconduct, and this subverts the department’s mission by undermining accountability of those who engage in misconduct.
It may first be argued that this has been a common pracce, and my response is that it does not mean it has been used appropriately. The department has too oen allowed bias for or against specific employees to be influenal in the deals they cut. Convenience and expediency have too oen been a factor when Chief Hagar has seled maers, and officers of rank generally benefit from this rather than POII officers.
Such cases he has been involved in, to my knowledge, include Lt. Schmitz’s case (IA2021-00046), Lt Gooch’s case (IA2022-00040), Captain Hunsicker and Director Hooper (IA2022-00004), and Chief Taylor’s case (IA2022-00003). Sgt. Tuberville’s case (IA2021-00064) is another example of a case seled before a hearing, but this may have been actually handled by another chief (perhaps Chief Greene).
The department should have records of all disciplinary cases, the inial recommended sancons, the decision to go to a hearing, the seling of the case prior to it, and the final sancons. It is not certain whether the chiefs actually document the basis for seling cases prior to a hearing, as these are believed to be primarily just conversaons which result in the final, approved paperwork. The actual reasoning or jusficaon for lowering or altering sancons without going to a hearing are not documented, to my knowledge.
An invesgaon should be conducted to review departmental pracce and policies regarding the basis for seling cases. The jusficaon, whether it was ever put in wring or not, should be reviewed, especially for Hagar’s cases. The sufficiency of the reasoning should be assessed in order to determine whether flaws in the fact-finding or invesgaons existed, and if they were determined to exist, whether the cases were ever sent back for further invesgaon or to address deficiencies going forward. If not, the basis for this should be looked into as well.
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As it operates in pracce now, accused employees may rounely obtain a beer outcome in their case by seeking a hearing and then seling their case before that hearing, for less sancons than inially issued for their conduct. It should be assessed whether the department is giving greater sancons for offenses in hopes that an officer will just sele for less, thus using sancons in a manner to bluff or force agreement with the department’s case, or if the department is simply undermining its own process and procedures through perming the exploitaon of seling cases as a maer of expediency.
Seling cases in this manner calls into queson how sancons are determined to begin with, as well as whether they really mean anything and who they are designed to benefit. Seling cases early benefits command staff in that they do not have to prepare for or conduct the departmental hearing. It also creates an informal process which can be taken advantage of by knowledgeable aorneys and officers, but it is not a widespread, common-knowledge process equally available to all officers. This results in unequal treatment of officers and is unfair. The disciplinary process is undermined as a whole with the department’s current pracce of seling cases prior to a hearing.
Recommendaons:
o Once an employee has elected to disagree with the invesgave findings and/or sancons and chosen to have a departmental hearing, cases should not be seled for anything less than the inial sancons and there should be no altering of the sustained policies. The employee should be given the opportunity to argue their case, including having sancons reduced, at the hearing.
o If new facts come to light which cause a substanal queson as to the invesgave finding or warrant further invesgaon, then the disciplinary process should be paused, addional invesgaon be conducted, and then another review conducted in order to determine how to proceed. All of this should be documented in wring.
o The bases for the aforemenoned case selements should be reviewed in order to establish whether facts or circumstances warranted it, and the judgment of those who made the decisions should be invesgated. Any other relevant, discovered policy provision which may have been violated should be invesgated too.
o Policy should be clarified regarding employee rights and the procedures for actually seling a disciplinary maer aer a selement meeng but prior to a hearing. As it is now, policy reads that employees do not get a third opportunity to accept responsibility for violaons of policy and sele cases (4.10.160 Presenng Findings to the Accused Employee, (E)5). It also reads under 4.10.170 Pre-Invesgaon Selement Agreement Process (12), that the selement agreement can occur at any point between receipt of complaint and before the conclusion of a Disciplinary Hearing Advisory Panel. The context and implicaon that a pre-invesgaon selement can occur aer an invesgaon is complete, is dubious and misleading. Clarificaon of policy should occur to ensure all employees know their rights, how to access them, and to ensure procedures controlling the process are fair to all, transparent, and not exploitable.
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Pertaining to item one (1)(g):
Chief Hagar engages in a paern of deficient communicaon and the aempted delegaon of his decision-making responsibilies to others whose rank, posion, or role has never had that responsibility, and he appears to minimize his liability by obscuring his role when handling maers.
Chief Hagar engages in a pracce of communicang certain types of instrucons or informaon, in such a way that others are tasked with doing things that fall outside of their responsibility or established policy. His pracce of not wanng things traced back to him has even been noted by Commander Starling and Director Morante.
One example involves Lt. Arevalo aempng to obtain the sancon recommendaons for Gooch’s case. It took Lt. Arevalo mulple aempts to obtain the sancon recommendaon for the case, and sll he was not successful. AC Hagar repeatedly waffled, was unclear, and seemed to turn the decision over to Lt. Arevalo, even though it had never been the pracce of OPA determining sancons. There is an email chain dated around March 23, 2023 which should clearly show this. It was always the pracce to send an email to the sanconing supervisor (captain/commander/chief), and they would respond with a sancon which fits within policy.
This interacon with Hagar exemplified a known issue with his leadership and hesitancy to have certain decisions documented as being his. In the end, Lt. Arevalo had to get Commander Starling to assist, and I recall that Hagar sent Starling a text message with the informaon which was then forwarded to me to save as an official record of the sancon recommendaon for the case.
Another example of Hagar’s conduct includes when I was newly appointed to OPA and there was no commander. I was helping to develop the OPA response to COB recommendaons and invesgaons. During this me frame, I had several communicaons with Chief Hagar, most of which were by phone. During one of these conversaons, he told me I needed to ensure that a Form 312 Complaint Report was completed for each COB case.
I acknowledged what he said but did not do as he suggested because departmental policy did not address using an outside enty’s invesgaon as the basis for the invesgave finding on our formal reporng. I believed we had a responsibility to review each one, rather than simply stuff it into an officer’s personnel file. Regardless, policy and SOP had not addressed what should be done in this situaon, and he was not in my chain of command (See next item for more). I do not believe there is anything in wring that was communicated to me about compleng these 312 forms.
I would add that another example of using others to handle something he should have and controlling the communicaon regarding it, was the Stephen’s case (IA2023-00058) and how he wanted the 312 documented. Given his involvement in that case and taking personal supervisory acons to control its outcome, he should have been the one to complete the Form 312 rather than sending instrucons down to document it in a way that established how it was mishandled. This brought others into the mishandling as intermediaries, further distancing himself from the formal wrien record. He completed the Form 311 but these are filed away temporarily (usually six months or less) before being shredded.
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Addionally, I believe that his handling of Lt. Hammond’s case (IA2018-00008) occurred in such a way as to minimize his documented involvement or responsibility, and this is another reason why he was likely not also included in the lawsuit. He has learned how to successfully operate to reduce his liability and use others as shields.
Chief Hagar’s manner of conducng himself as a member of command staff reveals a paern of non-transparency, shiing risks onto others, and general untrustworthiness not befing a member of leadership.
Recommendaon:
o Chief Hagar’s communicaon and instrucon pracces should be invesgated in order to determine whether he has engaged in violaon of policies, procedures, or general unethical conduct not befing a member of leadership. If his acons are determined to simply be part of a wider departmental pracce, the department should cra policy and enact procedures to enhance transparency and accountability with respect to supervisory decision making and communicang instrucons involving disciplinary maers and invesgaons.
Pertaining to item one (1)(h):
Chief Hagar superseding or ignoring chains of command, as well as giving deficient or poor instrucons in the process.
Within the first weeks of my tenure at OPA, the Community Oversight Board (COB) began sending an increasing number of Proposed Resoluon Reports (PRR). It became apparent to me very early on that the quality of the Metro Nashville Community Oversight (MNCO) invesgaons was lacking. They offered both substanated and unsubstanated findings under wrong policies; they failed to document key facts or did not apply certain facts they did have; cited policies no longer in place; their approach to policy findings was uniquely theirs and not in line with how the MNPD would find; their provision of case file material was not consistent and when they were provided, revealed addional concerns with their invesgaons; and more.
Handling these maers and responding to them was new for the department as a whole; only one previous recommendaon report had been sent prior to my assignment as the OPA lieutenant. OPA did not have an established process for methodically receiving, reviewing, documenng, and responding to these reports. I began the process of creang one alongside Director Morante.
During this, I had intermient contact with Chief Hagar and Debbie Savage. The most relevant communicaons were those with Chief Hagar, but there should be a few emails around this me between us three (Check especially around October 2021 through January 2022). I also had several phone conversaons with Chief Hagar.
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During one of these phone conversaons, Chief Hagar instructed me to complete Form 312’s (Complaint Reports) for all COB issued PRR’s. He did not explain how to reconcile issues in their invesgaons and our lack of a departmental invesgaon. He only insisted that their reports were tantamount to a complaint which needed to be documented. With that much I agreed, but a process was needed for mulple reasons—especially to protect officers’ due process rights and ensure fairness.
The single greatest concern I had in compleng these 312’s was for the rights of officers. Many of the PRR’s submied by the COB involved allegaons which had not been or were not under invesgaon by the MNPD. This means all case facts rested upon the MNCO invesgaon.
This in turn created the dilemma of how to complete the Form 312’s. Some cases would require sustaining an officer; others with recording a “not sustained” finding when clearly the officer was “exonerated” or the complaint was “unfounded.” Findings of “exonerated” and “unfounded” are much more favorable to an officer than “not sustained.” It was a maer of accurate and fair reporng. Aer all, these documents would go into an officer’s personnel or disciplinary file.
At the me, it was also not established whether, how, or to what degree the MNPD would invesgate or re-invesgate the COB PRR’s. Leaning upon a PRR which had a sustained finding would have been a gross error, but I was also hesitant to do a rushed OPA invesgaon into each sustained case because of how I perceived this as jeopardizing the rights of the accused officers.
Some of the COB PRR’s were straighorward maers, but others had nuances and complexity. At the end of the day, I wanted documentaon to reflect the facts as accurately and fairly as possible for all stakeholders: the accused officers, the department in general vis-a-vi a process of integrity, the COB & MNCO whose cases had the potenal to be true and accurate (and they did have several that idenfied policy violaons which needed to be upheld), and the public who expects officer misconduct to be addressed appropriately.
I did not follow the instrucons given to me by Chief Hagar for two primary reasons. Firstly, I did not feel it was right. More needed to be done to ensure accused officers’ rights were safeguarded. I was not willing to stuff the personnel or disciplinary files of accused officers with erroneous or inaccurate documentaon just so the department could say they had documented complaints. This could affect their career, and it was not fair, especially when we had the ability to do more to address these maers.
Secondly, Chief Hagar was not within my chain of command, and to my knowledge he never communicated his instrucons for me to Director Morante. He circumvented the chain of command to get a result he wanted. Chief Hagar would bypass me for other cases, such as Chief Stephens, and I believe he even bypassed Commander Starling and Director Morante for the Covenant leak.
His decisions reflected expedience rather than excellence, and following his instrucons would have created problems for the whole department in the future and especially for individual employees. A consistent, fair process needed to be implemented from the start, and we did not have that regarding the COB cases. A process would later be craed, but it was not in place at the me his instrucons came down to me.
Recommendaons:
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o The department should enact addional safeguards to ensure that OPA invesgaons and processes remain independent of outside influence.
o Ensure that wrien policies are established for administrave processes and procedures prior to implemenng changes which affect officers throughout the department, and publish these updates so that officers are aware of the changes prior to them going into effect.
Pertaining to item (2)(a):
There is a paern of rank bias in invesgaons and sancons in which higher ranking personnel have more favorable outcomes than lower ranking when circumstances or allegaons are similar.
Lt. Gooch’s case (IA2022-00040) involved him being at a bar for around nine (9) hours one day, insgang a confrontaon, following the other patron outside and causing a physical confrontaon requiring the other to act in self-defense, and then geng into his truck and driving off despite being obviously intoxicated. He was subsequently stopped by police but they refrained from working a DUI invesgaon, possibly as a result of seeing his badge. All of this was recorded on surveillance and BWC footage obtained during the invesgaon.
Despite all of this, he was permied to enter into an employee assistance program which was pro-acvely and adamantly pushed by his chain of command and even OPA leadership as a possible way to migate his punishment. This was unprecedented, as policy does not provide for employee assistance or a rehabilitaon program to be used as a means to migate non-substance abuse misconduct.
Historically, rehabilitaon programs are opons when officers test posive for prescripon drugs and/or alcohol or if they self-report such substance abuse and voluntary seek assistance. Parcipaon in such a program is not listed or remotely referenced as a migang factor under 4.10.150 The Disciplinary / Correcve Acon Grid, C. Aggravang and Migang Factors. Rather, a close inspecon of that secon would reveal several aggravang factors which would apply when sanconing this case.
Addionally, top-down direcon and influence came from or through Director Morante and Commander Starling which made it clear that they did not believe the DUI offense should be looked at with specificity since he was not charged with it. I disagreed in conversaon with them, but understanding the united perspecve, I relented. The department has established a precedent that whether an officer is actually charged with a violaon of law is not directly relevant for whether there was a violaon of said law and/or other applicable policy for the conduct. The failure of another agency to work a DUI invesgaon does not mean that an officer did not engage in a DUI. Even the Nashville
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District Aorney’s office has used body cameras and prosecuted DUI’s aer an officer failed to make an arrest on an obviously DUI individual.
Addionally, Lt. Gooch did not appear to be remorseful or completely forthcoming in acknowledging his acons during his interview about the incident, despite being walked into adming violaons of policy. In the end, OPA sustained Lt. Gooch for a violaon of 4.20.040 Personal Behavior, D. Conduct Unbecoming an Employee of the Department and 4.20.050 Official Obligaons, K. Use of Alcohol, Drugs, or other Intoxicants.
Chief Hagar rolled the alcohol offense into the conduct unbecoming offense so that he was only sustained and sanconed on a single policy violaon. The fact that the department wanted to downplay the role of alcohol when invesgang his conduct by overlooking the DUI, while at the same me playing up its role as a means of lowering his sancons through the use of a rehabilitaon program, and then removing the alcohol policy offense from being on his disciplinary record by incorporang it into another violaon, reveals the addional effort leadership is willing to expend in protecng certain people engaging in misconduct.
Inially, he was given a thirty-day suspension with a last chance agreement, but he was not demoted. His sancons were decreased aer this to twenty days. His case and sancons were carefully treated in order to give him a favorable outcome which officers of lower rank do not receive.
A counter example was detecve Thorowgood’s case (IA2022-00050). He was a POII (two ranks lower than a lieutenant). He iniated an off-duty altercaon near his home which became physical, but he was sober. The Robertson County grand jury heard the case and did not indict / bring a true-bill. Detecve Thorowgood was actually already preparing to leave the MNPD and had a posion secured with another agency. He requested a pre-invesgaon selement to save himself and the department the trouble of a prolonged process. He wanted to admit to his conduct and move forward.
Despite all of this, leadership appeared out for blood in his situaon and pressured Thorowgood to accept a slightly lower number of suspension days (15 days), as long as he also submied a leer of uncondional resignaon. Thorowgood acknowledged he was wrong from the beginning, but he was hesitant to accept so many suspension days when he was already going to be leaving the MNPD.
Both of these cases involve an officer iniang a physical altercaon while off-duty, but neither were charged with a violaon of law under the assault statute. The factors present in the lieutenant’s case were worse. Despite this, he received addional help from leadership to gain a much more favorable outcome; otherwise, he likely would have been terminated. The low-ranking officer received addional pressure and antagonism from leadership to force him out, possibly because there was some actual publicity on his case in which the cizen posted a YouTube video.
It is my assessment that whether something receives public outcry or not should be irrelevant; all of these maers are ulmately maers of public record. Moreover, some cizens and situaons simply do not get the aenon others do. An objecve and fair process should be craed which does not bend to the whims and winds of the public but would sll stand up to their scruny. The visibility of those harmed by police misconduct should not influence the outcome of the process.
Another case which provides a contrast in how rank affects an accused employee’s departure from the MNPD would be Captain Hunsicker’s case (IA2022-00004). In this case, both he and Julia
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Hooper were part of a very prolonged preliminary invesgaon by OPA in which more than twenty (20) witnesses within the Crime Lab were interviewed.
There were numerous corroborated accounts from witnesses about their supervisory conduct, to include: a bathroom sign-in/out board; monitoring employees through cameras and commenng about their producvity or other acons; commenng one black employee had “corn bread cheeks”; one unit of all-black employees had their only window covered up because they were supposedly looking outside too much; that same unit was not invited to a pizza party but at least one person had to go get that food; that same unit was bypassed when tours of the division were given; and a multude of other comments and acons which caused employees distress and made their work environment toxic. The turn-over rate dramacally increased and resulted in jeopardizing the accreditaon of the lab itself, even causing them to have to outsource toxicology tesng of DUI blood evidence kits.
Hunsicker was going to rere while the invesgaon was open, thus leaving in bad standing. However, command staff convinced him to enter into a pre-invesgaon selement and then rere, but Hooper did not want such a deal inially. She had an eight (8) hour interview with OPA. Aerwards, she sought to rere. She was permied to enter into a “pre-invesgaon selement” despite the invesgaon having been completed at that point, and the chiefs permied it. Hunsicker received twelve (12) suspension days for Workplace Conduct, while Hooper received ten (10) days for it.
Unlike Thorowgood who was pressured on his way out, Hunsicker was assisted with resolving his case with a more favorable outcome, despite his willingness to leave with it sll open, in order to help him leave in good standing. Hooper was permied to go through the whole process and sll enter into a pre-invesgaon selement, which does not seem an appropriate way to view her circumstances as the detecve was finished with her case and had to interview her anyway.
Thorowgood’s conduct was unacceptable. So was Hunsicker and Hooper’s. When the details Hunsicker and Hooper’s case are thoroughly examined, I would argue that their situaon was worse; more people were harmed by their conduct. The supervisors were helped by command staff with their cases; the POII officer was hindered. Addionally, the supervisors harmed subordinates, and command staff approved selements which arguably made light of the significance of what the invesgaon had uncovered. I believe this is another instance of rank bias and supervisors protecng other supervisors.
On another case (IA2022-00021), Sgt. Eubanks was offered demoon when his management of an officer and an arrestee could have resulted in death or serious bodily injury (strictly speaking the arrestee did go into ventricular fibrillaon and would likely have died if they were not at the hospital at that me), and Sergeant Bre Kenney was offered demoon in response to his escalaon and use of force against a group of juveniles resulng in injury. Contrarily, Lieutenant Gooch’s drunken bar fight and Lt. Schmitz injuring a female officer did not result in demoon being sought in the end.
There is a general pracce than when a higher-ranking supervisor engages in conduct which harms a member of the public or subordinate, that supervisor does not face proporonate consequences. A lower ranking officer in similar severity circumstances generally will receive worse punishment.
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Recommendaon:
o Establish policy and procedures to improve the consistency, objecvity, and fairness of how employees are sanconed.
o Establish an objecve and consistent policy regarding how the department will administravely view an officer’s conduct when it appears to be a violaon of law. This standard should be sufficient to resist emoonal and polical outcry, as well as account for when an agency or even the District Aorney’s office chooses not to arrest or prosecute the officer. There should be consistency in how an officer who commits a readily apparent criminal offense is invesgated and sustained, regardless of factors outside the department’s control. Cherry picking which criminal offenses warrant being treated as violaons of law is subject to too much bias and is unfair.
o Review naonwide best pracces for disciplining officers and seek external input.
o Establish in policy that higher-ranking employees will generally be issued a higher sancon for the same conduct commied by a lower ranking employee. This should be done to reflect the importance and potenal impact of leadership’s conduct and effect on organizaonal culture and that their supervisory KSA’s should reduce their propensity for violang policy in the first place.
Pertaining to item (2)(b):
The strictly tailored language in documentaon (to include case summaries and other disciplinary paperwork) for employees of higher rank accused of serious violaons of policy, as well as the special aenon cases with high-ranking employees receive, shows examples of rank bias and favorable treatment of certain employees over others.
There have been several instances in which command staff has worked out deals which result in favorable resoluons for other supervisors and reduce the wrien language placed on forms or summaries. Some of these cases include Captain Hunsicker and Director Hooper’s case (IA2022-00004), Chief Taylor (IA2022-00003), Chief Stephens (IA2023-00058).
In Hunsicker and Hooper’s case, the Form 312’s language was greatly reduced and non- descripve of what was actually alleged. Moreover, the language of their admissions watered-down and passive. While it was a common pracce for the language on 312 Forms to be simplified because they would be accompanied by OPA case summaries, the final case summary for their cases was reduced to a single page at the instrucon of the chiefs (Chief Hagar, I believe).
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The department catered to the accused employees and craed very specific language to go onto the Form 312 and case summary which would give the public zero idea as to the gravity of the allegaons made against them.
In Taylor’s case, the department was interested in pursuing a mutually beneficial separaon in which he would rere and the case would be closed out. This process was permied to become a prolonged, drawn-out maer in order to avoid it going to a hearing. In the end, Chief Hagar dropped the Workplace Conduct charge and only sanconed him on his polical acvies and the noficaon of transfers.
In Stephen’s case, Chief Hagar helped with the invesgaon and instructed that a Form 312 be completed which sanized the wrien record with the purpose of clearing Stephens of any wrongdoing. Compounding this is the language of the Form 311 that Chief Hagar completed as a part of protecng Stephens. It included language which requires special aenon, and here it is in full:
During the course of an invesgaon, several facts were revealed which suggest that DCOP Stephens created the percepon or allowed the percepon to exist that he may not have been acng imparally (as required by MNPD Manual 4.20.040, Personal Behavior, W. Acng Imparally).
This policy was reviewed with DCOP Stephens and a discussion occurred regarding both the intent and applicaon of the policy as well as percepon.
It has been said that percepon is reality; that if something is perceived, then it might as well be as it becomes the truth in peoples minds.
DCOP acknowledged an understanding and awareness of the issues. He expressed great dismay that a friend and co-worker had created a situaon that allowed a mis-percepon to exist and that co-worker had, upon discussion about the maer, lied to DCOP Stephens.
DCOP Stephens expressed how much he has grown professionally from this experience and, importantly, the need to avoid percepon of friendships, favorism, or the appearance of giving unfair preferenal treatment to one person or group at the expense of another-even if not true.
DCOP Stephens acknowledges and understanding of his role, responsibilies and dues as a deputy chief and the importance of ensuring that the workplace remains free from undue influences and mispercepons.
DCOP Stephens is also more aware of his responsibilies to ensure that his supervisory chain of command is appropriately made aware of concerning issues regardless of any belief that noficaons were previously made.
The counseling was also approved by ACOP Greene.
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This Form 311 (Remedial Counseling Report) was signed on September 5, 2023 by both Chief Stephens and Chief Hagar. Given pracces Hagar engages in, it is quite rich how he gives advice he should be following. Seng this aside, the language of the 311 reads as a document which is designed to exonerate and protect Stephens while pung all of the blame on Commander Newbern. Hagar intervened as if he could wave a magic wand and make the basis for Stephens’ invesgaon disappear, but the language Hagar used makes it clear that a reasonable belief existed which jusfied the invesgaon into the allegaon.
As noted above and in other places within this overall complaint (such as with Schmitz’s case), it is apparent that the MNPD leadership take a so approach when sanconing how other supervisors harm subordinates. It also apparent that the MNPD puts extra effort into helping high-ranking employees when they are accused so that they receive a more favorable outcome, going as far as taking the extra effort to arculate formal documentaon to their benefit while playing loose with their interpretaon of policy if it will benefit another supervisor.
Recommendaon:
o Establish a policy or procedural safeguard which prevents rank bias and protecon of high- ranking supervisors who have been accused of misconduct.
o Increase the severity of sancons for supervisors in general and especially when an employee has been harmed by their conduct.
o Consider external review of cases or proposed sancons for members of command staff (captain rank and above). A panel comprised of members from the Mayor’s office and/or CRB may help ensure that members of rank are not given preferenal treatment and that these maers are handled fairly.
Pertaining to item (2)(c):
The lack of documentaon and subsequent terminaon of the invesgaon into Don Aaron’s treatment of News Channel 2 reporter Kenley Harge.
Kenley Harge’s allegaon that Don Aaron mistreated him, even inially alleging a possible assault, resulted in a secreve invesgaon conducted by Det. Ron Carter. I only learned of this invesgaon aer it had been going on for an amount of me that remains unclear to me even now.
Det. Carter conducted some interviews and reviewed footage related to the incident. Eventually, he had conducted enough of an invesgaon to determine that there did not appear to be an assault,
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but there was a confrontaon which could have been a violaon of policy related to Courtesy or Self- Control. This would require addional invesgaon.
This occurred before I took a temporary leave to aend Northwestern School of Police Staff and Command, which was in May 2023. One of the last items I was tasked with by Director Morante before leaving for SPSC was to aempt to get both Harge and Aaron to agree to mediate the maer. I am not sure that this maer, strictly speaking, was eligible for mediaon given what was known about Don’s conduct.
I followed instrucons and called Harge first. I explained what mediaon was; that it was oponal; that it was voluntary; and that if he did not wish to do it, the invesgaon would run its normal course. He expressed some interest, though with reservaons, and requested that one or two other co- workers who witnessed Aaron’s behavior be able to aend as well.
I contacted Don Aaron and had a similar conversaon. He had reservaons too, but he seemed interested in the idea of it quashing the maer. In my opinion, he sll seemed to be shiing the blame towards Harge, and I worried this would not bode well for the mediaon itself. However, if he aended, I felt confident that the mediator could navigate such things.
I then sent an email to the Nashville Conflict Resoluon Center (NCRC). I provided the inial informaon for their intake in the email. Because nothing had been documented in IAPro yet for this allegaon, I made an inial entry under a MOR number (MR2023-00047). I wanted there to be something in the system, just in case. It was not uncommon for invesgaons to take place for a while before any formal, wrien record was made, but I wanted to ensure something was in the system before leaving for SPSC. A new case number could be assigned when needed.
I think it was about two weeks later when I received an email from the NCRC that they had been able to get in contact with Kenly Harge, and he declined to go forward with mediaon. I forwarded this email to Commander Starling and Director Morante to nofy them that mediaon would not be possible for Don’s case. I don’t believe I said much more than this in the email. I knew they would understand the implicaons, and because I had started SPSC, I did not involve myself any further. I presumed they would assign the case and have it taken to its factual conclusion, in accordance with policy since mediaon was not happening. If mediaon fails or cannot be done for a complaint, the invesgaon is supposed to be completed per its normal procedures.
When I returned from SPSC in the first week of August 2023, at some point I was talking to Det. Carter in order to be caught up on any important events which had taken place. I asked him how that invesgaon worked out. He said that he was told that Chief Drake had just had a conversaon with Don Aaron about the maer and that was it. Nothing else happened.
There should have been a full invesgaon, with a full conclusion of facts, and full documentaon on departmental forms, to include a Form 312. I looked what I could up in the system, and I could find no other documentaon relang to the allegaon. I looked up Don Aaron’s history, and I saw nothing other than crash or damage to property reports in his history.
This was surprising too because I had heard from Commander Starling, Director Morante, and Det. Carter than Don Aaron had been known to act or speak a certain way with others in the media—this
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was said in the context that they were not too surprised about the allegaon from Kenly Harge. The implicaon from this is that other past events had been swept under the rug as well.
How Harge’s allegaon regarding Don Aaron was handled highlights yet another example of how certain individuals within the department, especially of a certain rank or if they are liked enough, are shown preferenal treatment and protecon from the complaint process. Employees generally view Don Aaron as having a high rank, and he has been on with the department for a very long me, thus he has a tenure or seniority recognized accordingly.
I also do not believe that an offense report was ever completed to document the inial allegaon made by Harge which was perceived as an assault at the me. It is common pracce that when a cizen alleges an officer assaulted them, these reports are generally done. A criminal detecve is assigned to work the case, and it is usually presented to the DA’s office for consideraon in order to determine whether it is something they will prosecute.
These assault allegaons result in an invesgaon which is also a mechanism by which the accused is cleared. By not documenng this on an offense report, it creates less of a paper trail and obviously decreased possible consequences for Don Aaron. If an allegaon was made by Kenly Harge that Don Aaron had engaged in assaulve behavior, even if just by inmidaon, then an offense report should have been done, irrespecve of any other administrave invesgaon into Don Aaron’s conduct.
The way this case was handled benefied the accused employee, in this case Don Aaron, in ways that others do not receive when actual complaint policy and procedure are handled. The lack of uniformity in the disciplinary and invesgave process undermines it as a whole and further tarnishes the trustworthiness of those making decisions. It is unclear what role Director Morante and Commander Starling played in either facilitang or aempng to correct how this case was mishandled.
This is another notable instance of high-ranking supervisors subverng the disciplinary process to protect another tenured or high-ranking employee.
Recommendaon:
o Resume the invesgaon into Don Aaron’s conduct and come to an actual invesgave finding. Complete all the relevant invesgave and disciplinary paperwork to resolve this maer.
o Idenfy what occurred and who was responsible for aborng handling this case in accordance with policy and procedures; address this accordingly.
Pertaining to item (2)(d):
Accountability of supervisors is deficient in the MNPD, and there is pracce of transferring personnel of captain rank and above without formal invesgaons, documentaon, or findings, despite the basis for such transfers being due to paerns of poor supervisory performance.
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The MNPD, in general, has a current cultural crisis involving failures driven by leadership, from the top- down, involving the lower standards for supervisors fulfilling their responsibility, despite what is required with 4.20.020 Control Provisions:
Recognize the importance of clearly established policies and procedures governing employee conduct, personal behavior, official obligaons, courtesy, and appearance;
Recognize the importance and benefits of proper discipline and professional bearing;
E. Recognize the importance of uniform correcve acons and support such acons iniated by other supervisors when the acon is appropriate. A supervisor will also intervene on any correcve acon iniated by another that is found to be inappropriate.
This is evidenced by the influence of high-ranking supervisors driving disciplinary outcomes based upon their discreon and ulterior moves rather than objecve, fact-driven invesgaons and decisions bound by policy. As noted, there have been instances of selecve enforcement of policy provisions, and leadership oen exercise their authority to help other ranking supervisors achieve beer outcomes (rank bias) while lower ranking officers (generally POII rank) are hurt with worse outcomes.
Generally, higher-ranking supervisors are believed to be held to a higher-standard given their knowledge, seniority, and the example they set for the rest of the department. This belief is commonly held among others within law enforcement, especially among field experts within internal affairs and police policy and discipline, such as instructors with Northwestern School of Police Staff and Command and naonal conferences on these topics.
Despite this, the MNPD has a culture of protecng high-ranking supervisors, providing beer outcomes, interfering with invesgaons, taking advantage of a manipulatable disciplinary policy, and even not documenng complaints or failures in performance at all so that no wrien record exists—thus liming knowledge of misconduct to a very small group of individuals and removing it from public record discovery.
This situaon is what some have historically called a “good ole boy” system designed to protect those within the group. 4.20.050 Official Obligaons, F. Deficient or Inefficient Performance of Dues is commonly used for a significant occurrence or repeated occurrences of poor performance regarding a job task or responsibility. It is used with regularity to address POII performance, but it is very rarely used to address a supervisor’s failure to supervise, as noted under:
4. Failure to supervise and/or carry out the dues and/or the responsibilies of a supervisor;
The primary duty and responsibility of a supervisor is that of managing and leading their subordinates. While this policy does not mean that every supervisory failure is categorically and only a failure to supervise, the department’s aversion to cing this policy when supervisors have failed in their role is striking and evidence of proteconism among the higher ranks.
Oen, upper leadership will resolve these complaints under alternave policy provisions, such as 4.20.040 Personal Behavior, I. Responsibility, because high ranking supervisors perceive a violaon under
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Failure to Supervise is a “black-eye” on a supervisor’s career. Because of this, they look for alternave ways to sele cases or direct invesgave findings. (See Tennant’s case referenced herein)
Another common way of avoiding addressing a supervisor’s failure to supervise is to simply transfer a high-ranking supervisor to another posion or role in the department without actually opening a formal invesgaon into the conduct believed to warrant the transfer. This tacc is oen used for moving captains, commanders, and above. This typically occurs when a supervisor is having repeated issues with their performance in their assignment. Higher ranking supervisors will have conversaons with the problem supervisor about their performance, unl finally the issue has become too great or repeve, and then the supervisor is transferred.
POII officers are rounely wrien up and addressed formally when they engage in a paern of poor performance in their assignment. They are rarely, if ever, given the opportunity to transfer to another assignment in order to have the opportunity to succeed there. Instead, when their performance is addressed, it is handled formally through the disciplinary process and policy. This creates a record in the officer’s disciplinary or personnel file, and it has the potenal to affect their annual evaluaon.
Handling a supervisor’s paern of poor performance non-formally through a simple transfer without creang a formal, wrien record in accordance with disciplinary procedures disproporonately benefits supervisors. The result is that higher ranking supervisors especially benefit in being able to bounce around without formally having it put on their record; nevertheless, the performance issues are usually maers of widespread knowledge with many giving their own anecdotes and knowledge about the issues.
Doing this enables the problem supervisor’s supervisor to transfer a problemac subordinate without having to actually formally invesgate, gather facts, conduct interviews, create a wrien record, and possibly have to defend their case through the whole disciplinary process; they cannot have their case refuted or overturned. This limits an accused employee’s opons for redress and for defending themselves because the acon taken against them was not done so as “discipline.”
This refrain that “transfers are not disciplinary” has existed for a long me within the department. By this reasoning, I would argue that the department’s pracce of using transfers to avoid wring personnel up formally is proof that they do not discipline supervisors for their poor performance as they frequently would a lower ranking officer. If this pracce is what Chief Drake desires for his supervisors, he should at least extend this professional courtesy to officers of all rank.
I do not know of any occurrence in which a patrol officer was given the opportunity to transfer out to another non-patrol assignment in order to provide them the opportunity to succeed in a different role, in lieu of formal discipline. Rather, patrol is oen treated as the dumping ground for police officers of any rank when they are perceived as problem employees or not being successful in a non-patrol assignment. This sgmazes one of the few actual “essenal” assignments of the MNPD, and it places employees who are already having performance issues in one of the most complex, dynamic, KSA demanding, and stressful roles within the department.
Patrol officer assignments oen limit the ability of personnel to have me off from work, further exacerbang the stressors, and the aforemenoned factors funcon as the insidious way in which transfers to patrol serve as punishment. Using patrol as an informal punishment for officers also
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undermines the crical role it serves and insults those who do it well and prefer that role over other assignments.
Regardless, to my knowledge there is no provision within policy that permits the transfer of personnel in lieu of using the disciplinary process. I could conceive of creang such an opon within policy, but this would require extensive consideraon and language to ensure it is not abused. It would require a process which honors the public’s trust and is not detrimental to the department’s mission, efficiency, effecveness, and integrity.
I do believe that some personnel may be in posions or roles for which they are not suited. If an employee’s performance issues appear to be ed to their ability to perform in their specific role (rather than due to a lack of character or overall ability or judgment), then transfers may provide a means to foster organizaonal success. Organizaons can create environments and condions which promote poor performance, failure, and leave individuals vulnerable to engaging in violaons. It could be in the best interest of officers, the department, and the public to recognize these special circumstances and provide an “out.”
The pracce already exists and is used with bias for the benefit of higher-ranking supervisors. It should either be completely eliminated or carefully and methodically craed into a transparent process which can benefit all.
Invesgang this issue of transferring supervisors in lieu of formal disciplinary acon will have difficules given the lack of wrien records.
Recommendaons:
o The MNPD should commit to holding supervisors to a higher standard.
o The MNPD should review transfers of high-ranking supervisors, especially captain rank and above, and determine whether the basis for such transfers was due to performance issues and if so, whether these were properly documented and addressed in accordance with policy.
o The MNPD should require that the basis for all transfers be formally documented on a departmental form in order to create a transparent wrien record.
o The MNPD should decide whether it wants to permit transfers in lieu of disciplinary acon, establish this in policy, and ensure it is uniformly applied to all ranks.
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Pertaining to item (2)(e):
Command Staff outside of OPA is overly involved in and influencing how invesgaons are conducted, and this can be used to lessen or worsen outcomes for the accused, irrespecve of the actual case facts.
Chief Stephens’ case (IA2023-00058), Commander Newbern’s case (IA2023-00067), the covenant leak case (IA2023-00094), Hunsicker and Hooper’s case (IA2022-00004), and Chief Taylor’s (IA2022- 00003) could also fall within this. too. The example I will focus on here involves then-lieutenant Tennant.
Lt. Tennant’s case (IA2023-00043) involved conduct which Chief Greene wanted considered under Responsibility versus Failure to Supervise. Lt. Tennant’s case and Det. Sgt. Sofer’s invesgaon were influenced by communicaon from Asst. Chief Greene and/or Deputy Chief Carrigan inquiring and direcng the invesgaon out of a biased preference for Lt. Tennant due to his past role(s) in the department, as well as out of a concern for him assuming a new posion with limited assistance, support, and resources.
Because of this, I believe Asst. Chief Greene felt some responsibility for migang the fallout from Lt. Tennant’s failure to supervise in his role at the me of the invesgaon, and he did not want a finding of 4.20.050 Official Obligaons, F (4) to be on his disciplinary history. He had also idenfied him for promoon.
This resulted in communicaon up and down the chain through Commander Starling and Chief Greene primarily, which resulted in conversaon with Sgt. Sofer. This in turn influenced how OPA Det. Sgt. Sofer viewed his invesgaon, as well as the subsequent fact analysis in order to come to a specific finding in keeping with Chief Greene’s desire.
Rather than drawing the readily apparent conclusion that Lt. Tennant failed to supervise, his supervisory responsibility was minimized. These conversaons regarding the case direcon occurred without me, and I discovered deficiencies in the course of reviewing of Sofer’s invesgave case file which led me to wonder why this parcular conclusion was amiss. This is when the conversaons between he and Commander Starling came to light. Subsequently, Commander Starling revealed they had taken place as well due to how significant my correcons to the invesgaon would be.
They would be markedly different than what Chief Greene was hoping to see given his discussions with Commander Starling, but Starling said he would just have to explain the facts I highlighted to Greene. My review of the facts while oblivious to the prior understanding threw a wrench in what had been put in moon.
Sgt. Sofer had not been at OPA for a full year at this me, and I believe he was open to and looking for direcon on some aspects of his case. I was aending Northwestern SPSC at the me he was assigned the case. I do not believe it was his intenon to cover up details; rather, he was sll learning and this situaon presented an easy opportunity for command staff to interject and direct his aenon in his fact finding. I say this to emphasize that I do not personally believe he was engaging in any misconduct, and I discussed the issues I idenfied with him, gave correcons, and coached him in light of what I discovered.
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During the review of his invesgaon, I noced one thing aer another, and this led to an increasingly deeper review of the interviews and gathered facts. While somemes my correcons for cases were light and notes in the margin of the case summary or on scky notes was sufficient for send- backs, this case was one in which I created a separate document. As was my habit in these instances, I opened an email and typed out my correcons. Rather than send the email, I saved it as a dra (or may have moved it to a sub-folder), and I then printed the email out and aached it to the case file for the send-back. OPA should be able to locate a copy of this within my metro email to verify my concerns. I don’t think I ever deleted these.
This parcular send-back was somewhat lengthy, and I denoted the mulple reasons for why I believed his invesgaon had gathered the facts and made the case for a violaon of failure to supervise, rather than some other policy like responsibility. My review was thorough and irrefutable, and Commander Starling recognized that the facts I presented warranted reconsidering the conversaon and prior decision made with Chief Greene.
At the heart of this case was the fact that Lt. Tennant had personally discovered that officers under his supervision were violang policy with regards to vehicle modificaons and alteraons. Even though he knew this and personally believed they should not be doing these things to their vehicles, he did not intervene. A supervisor should bring their subordinates back into policy compliance, and he could have done this through the disciplinary process or even just causing the appropriate paperwork to be filed and approvals sought for the modificaons. Neither of these occurred.
Eventually, Fleet discovered the issue which was affecng mulple vehicles assigned under Lt. Tennant. The modificaons had been done or occurred over the course of at least one year, with Tennant aware of this. In order to address the issue, there was a series of communicaons up and down Tennant’s chain of command, and he did not properly communicate instrucons to his sergeants. In turn, they would allow officers to sneak into the Fleet lot aer hours to undo modificaons on a vehicle.
These officers were discovered at the locked and secured lot during this me. Other concerns came to light at this me, and OPA iniated an invesgaon because of this. To bring this full circle, if Lt. Tennant had just upheld his supervisory responsibilies at two key points in this whole series of events, officers and a sergeant under his supervision would not have been sustained on policy violaons by OPA. His failure to act created circumstances which resulted in subordinates violang policies.
His failure to act as a supervisor and manage this issue with his subordinates allowed misconduct to occur. While the underlying conduct in queson was just the modificaon of vehicles and not some other significant act of misconduct, he had knowledge of it and disregarded it. Addionally, other aspects of his supervision and his responses/demeanor during the interview made it appear he was minimizing various aspects the whole situaon and not taking ownership for what occurred.
Despite the case and the facts gathered during it, it has come to my aenon that Tennant was recently promoted to the rank of captain. These leads to two possibilies. One is that during the disciplinary process, the finding was sll changed to a different policy such as the one Chief Greene originally wanted (Responsibility) rather than failure to supervise, or the alternave, is that despite sustaining and sanconing the lieutenant on the failure to supervise, they decided to promote him to captain anyway. Both of these present problems.
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In the first instance, it would highlight that command staff will overlook facts in order to get the outcome they want on a maer. This enables protecng and punishing those they want, regardless of the actual jusficaon. In the second instance, the department would be proving that promoons are not based on merit or qualificaons and that “failing upwards” is alive and well at the MNPD.
This is a radical issue which is of paramount concern and should not be minimized. This is command staff cherry-picking winners and losers through the manipulaon of the internal affairs invesgave process. If command staff is allowed to influence invesgaons in order to achieve beer outcomes for certain employees, the same process can be used to achieve worse outcomes for others. This has been done in the past.
Safeguards must be enacted and maintained which protect the integrity of OPA invesgaons from being meddled with by other command staff. The process must be protected. It is one thing to communicate important invesgave events which may affect another division’s manpower for a period of me, and it is enrely another to affect the course of an invesgaon and the integrity of overall departmental operaons.
The credibility, integrity, dependability, and consistency of OPA invesgaons is jeopardized when they are permied to be influenced by anything other than exisng departmental policy, procedures, IA best pracces and training, law, and actual case facts. Anything else can be assumed to be biased and a step toward the slippery slope of corrupon.
Recommendaon:
o The final outcome of the disciplinary maer for Tennant’s case should be reviewed in order to determine whether it was based on actual case fact. If not, the supervisor(s) responsible for ignoring policy and facts should be invesgated and disciplined accordingly.
o The MNPD should enact policy and procedural safeguards which isolate OPA invesgaons from influence from other divisions and supervisors, regardless of rank, to ensure it remains as independent and fact-oriented as possible within the MNPD.
Pertaining to item (2)(f):
Department pracce of intenonally keeping things not documented in wrien records to prevent discovery during legal request to produce records. Oral communicaon is priorized in order to minimize a paper trail. This also facilitates the ability of upper leadership to use the refrain “I don’t remember” during interviews, knowing with reliability that lile to no wrien evidence exists which elucidates their acons or communicaon at the me of making certain decisions.
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This also relates to some of Chief Hagar’s acons, but this is a department wide issue among primarily upper leadership (captain and above). One notable example of how this is a common pracce involves communicaon with Chief Gilder.
During the process of concluding how command staff wanted Chief Stephens’ case handled, I had contact with Chief Gilder on at least two occasions (this would have been late October to middle November of 2023). During a phone conversaon, Chief Gilder stated that he “didn’t want to create more of an email trail because I’m 99% sure that we’ll end up in a lawsuit with Newbern” and “the phone is our friend” as his email was under constant hold due to ligaon involving the department, and he is not allowed to delete anything.
He also went on to provide limitaons and specifics on how to send an email to him, and the context was clear to me that he did not want certain informaon put in wring.
It was abundantly clear from this conversaon that Chief Gilder himself engages in a pracce of liming was goes into wrien record, down to his email, to limit what can be discovered by others. The only “others” who would be looking would be internal invesgators, such as OPA, or some source of external accountability or legal process.
Along with Hagar’s acons, this pracce of keeping things out of his email and from being discovered is an example of a greater pracce among leadership to avoid public accountability and scruny. It is an example of conduct which betrays public trust, and it reduces the available evidence and lines of reasoning and communicaon which could result in command staff personnel being liable for a decision they made or an issue they failed to handle appropriately.
Addionally, by keeping things off any wrien record, it limits a significant amount of communicaon to being verbal, and this in turn, is subject to convenient forgeulness. It is too easy for supervisors to say “I don’t remember” when being asked about an interacon, communicaon, or instrucon given or received when there was no recording or wrien record. This provides an easy out to avoid accountability.
This is an issue which will be difficult to invesgate without the honest admissions of those involved, because at the heart of it is looking for the absence of things. It is this absence of communicaon, reasoning, and jusficaons which are sanized from wrien records which enables upper leadership to more easily avoid personal accountability for their decision making and failures, and it serves to protect them over and against the public.
Recommendaon:
o Review departmental communicaon pracces among command staff and enact policy which prohibits supervisors from restricng wrien communicaon for the purpose of prevenng the creaon of records which can be subject to open record requests and subpoenas.
o If this issue is not part of a broader departmental pracce and is limited to a small group of supervisors (such as Hagar and Gilder) then they should be invesgated accordingly.
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Pertaining to item (2)(g):
Maers of integrity are being mishandled.
These maers are one which have not set well with me for much of my me as the Office of Professional Accountability Lieutenant. Even while doing what was expected of me, following past precedent, and instrucons which came down the chain, I did not always agree with certain decisions or how things were being handled.
The department has already demonstrated a new trend of resolving integrity related misconduct under other policies which permit sanconing opons to retain the employees. For example, a sustained violaon of Honesty & Truthfulness may be resolved under Conduct Unbecoming an Employee of the Department or Responsibility. This is done in order to have more room for issuing sancons other than dismissal from the department (which is the historic punishment and the only grid chart sancon for that violaon).
This benefits the officer as they do not lose their job. The department can say they took acon, and once a sancon has been given and served, it legally cannot be overturned.
The alarming trend is that the department is increasingly showing a tendency of retaining employees who have already demonstrated a willingness to either iniate, or in response to an inquiry, mislead, lie, or fabricate circumstances and statements (wrien or oral) in order to protect themselves. The department’s emerging pracce results in retenon of personnel who cannot reasonably be trusted to dispense with the necessary responsibilies and roles of a police officer or give a truthful account of past acons.
These officers may find themselves providing tesmony in court or in future inquiries in which the officer may face an even worse disciplinary, criminal, or civil outcomes—such as in a quesonable use-of-force incident, for example.
There are three of these instances I can recall at this me: Officer Rico Hunt (a crash vehicle damage incident at East precinct), Officer Poulos (IA2023-00057—a vehicle damage incident at EDU reported inially to Sergeant Coleman), and a vehicle fueling incident in which gas overflowed when an officer le his vehicle unaended (Lt. Hertenstein should remember this one as he brought it to OPA’s aenon when he was assigned at Fleet).
The gas overflow involved Fleet inquiring of the involved officer why there was such a dramac fuel overage, and he was instructed to complete a supplement explaining why. He claimed there had been nothing unusual regarding the acvity of his fuel card, but subsequent video footage was pulled which showed that he had le the vehicle unaended while fueling it. Aer returning to the vehicle from being inside the store, he discovered it had overflowed mulple gallons of fuel onto the ground. He noceably looked at the situaon, turned off the nozzle and re-racked it, and then drove off.
He knew what had happened, but neither reported it that day nor disclosed it in response to a formal departmental inquiry. Commander Starling and presumably the officer’s chain of command determined that the maer would be handled differently, without aending to the false statement
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concern. I had inially believed OPA would be invesgang it, and I recall sending an email to Lt. Hertenstein with this in mind. I had to send a follow-up email to walk this back.
The other two officers had vehicle crash / damage incidents in which it was discovered that they had mislead supervisors about the cause of vehicle damage when reporng it. Officer Poulos iniated his report as if he had just discovered the damage, and when Sgt. Coleman dug deeper by looking at the possibility of pulling video footage, the officer suddenly completely changed his story and came clean with what actually happened. I believe both of these officers had their cases resolved as Conduct Unbecoming an Employee of the Department rather than Honesty & Truthfulness or False/Inaccurate Statements.
It was disappoinng that officers would mislead about such a minor event as minor damage to a government vehicle, but the fact they were willing to mislead the department about such a trivial maer begs queson about the department being able to trust them if the original conduct involved a significant maer. Chief Greene was involved in direcng OPA away from Honesty & Truthfulness for Officer Poulos (IA2023-00057) so that it would be handled similar to Hunt’s case, which he may have been responsible for as well. He took the perspecve that Sgt. Coleman had somehow contributed to the officer giving the false statement, which was factually untrue and without a basis to even claim.
I do believe in both instances the officers received a significant amount of suspension days as their sancon. Nevertheless, the finding of facts under another policy in order to obscure what the actual conduct was materially affects their disciplinary record, and it would obscure the plain discovery of what the officers actual conduct had been should someone unfamiliar with the case see the violaon on their history. Doing this enabled the department to retain the employees.
While I don’t like the thought of officers losing their career over this kind of maer, that was a choice the officers made. Leadership’s decision regarding how these cases were handled was wrong. Leadership has created their own integrity issue.
On the other side of this issue, Commander Newbern’s invesgaon (IA2023-00067) involved an allegaon of being dishonest with his chain of command regarding circumstances pertaining to his job, and this was appropriately invesgated. However, members of command staff were displeased with other alleged conduct and percepons about how he was creang general issues as an employee. This creates a problemac percepon that employees can be treated differently by the same process depending on whether those making the decisions have favorable opinions of the employee or the movaon to protect them from the process.
While I believe the Newbern invesgaon was jusfied in invesgang his truthfulness and that the invesgator was personally being driven by the facts he was gathering, the departmental handling of integrity makes this maer complicated. The command staff’s decision to alter the invesgave outcome of certain officers’ integrity violaons begs the queson of why they would not do so for others like Newbern. Vulnerabilies exist within the departmental reasoning for invesgang or not invesgang certain maers in accordance with the actual language of policy. These vulnerabilies can undermine invesgaons in which invesgators actually have a factual basis for pursuing integrity violaons like Honesty & Truthfulness (as appears to be the case with Newbern’s situaon).
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Broadly speaking, it is true that not all departments across the country discipline maers of honesty and truthfulness with dismissal. It is true that the MNPD could decide this is how they want to handle these maers, but they should at least be honest and accurate when reporng and documenng it and call the conduct what it is. If the leadership is unwilling or unable to idenfy and handle such maers for what they are, then they should simply stop holding officers accountable to a level of integrity they themselves are unwilling to demonstrate. Curang the recorded facts in order to fit another departmental policy is at best, not transparent, and at its worst dishonest and untruthful—it’s false reporng.
It is my assessment that this is not a process driven by the invesgave efforts of the detecves or front-line supervisor who handle the case documentaon; rather, it is a process which comes from the top down and drives how the case proceeds. It is oen an effort to save an officer’s career, and it goes against the public’s interest. The department retains individuals who have demonstrated issues of judgment and integrity, and this will likely come back to haunt the department when the officer harms a cizen or the department’s image again.
I am unsure whether Chief Drake is aware of this changing approach to such integrity violaons. I understand the department has been struggling with manpower, and he has made a general push for the idea of “Do no harm” since he became Chief. Part of this seemed to be an effort to make certain disciplinary outcomes “beer” or less harmful to officers. Nevertheless, the department is trending to creang an environment in which those who demonstrate failures of integrity will remain in contact with the public—on the street and in the courtroom, and greater harm is on the horizon.
The importance of integrity cannot be overstated. Candidates must be selected who demonstrate it in the highest degree before they are admied to the training academy. Trainees who demonstrate a lack of it must be let go rather than given addional opportunies. I have heard several instances of trainees violang integrity, and I have witnessed it first-hand myself when I was in the training academy. The department’s need for personnel cannot overshadow the need for the most basic and important qualificaon: integrity.
I think the public can forgive officers when they make a mistake or are having a bad day. They know officers are not perfect, and so many things can be learned from in such a way that the officer genuinely improves so the next cizen is not likely to experience that kind of harm. I do not think the public is so forgiving with officers who cannot be trusted. I believe they will not forgive leadership which retains such employees.
Thankfully, the vast majority of MNPD personnel are people of integrity. Those who make mistakes or experience lapses in performance can generally be counted on to be honest about the maer. Dishonest conduct by employees is stascally rare. The department does not need to protect these employees, and if the department labels their conduct as something other than dishonest, the department will not be serving the public in a transparent manner.
Documenng these maers as something other than what they truly are results in data points which would not be pulled by the public in an open records request or inquiry. These real incidents will be obscured, and unless someone remembers the actual circumstances of each case, it will not be apparent to the public or even other employees that the documented policy violaon is actually a violaon of honesty and truthfulness or other integrity related offense
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Recommendaon:
o The MNPD should address maers of integrity under their most relevant policy provision, especially such conduct that is best addressed under Honesty and Truthfulness, False or Inaccurate Reports, and Failure to Cooperate/Withholding Informaon.
o The MNPD should commit to officer trustworthiness as being a top priority and sancon it as such or change policy so that these violaons do not have to be punished with dismissal, so they can at least be transparent in their handling of such offenses without having to curate facts, findings, and sancons to retain the officers.
Pertaining to item (2)(h):
Current departmental disciplinary pracce lacks proporonality, reasonableness, fairness, and consistency in sanconing misconduct.
The department has a Disciplinary Grid Chart and other accompanying policy provisions which are supposed to help ensure uniformity and consistency with the sanconing of misconduct. However, overall disciplinary policy is wrien in such a manner that there are numerous loopholes which allow increasing or decreasing the punishment of officers, and I believe this has been ulized too oen in a cherry-picking manner.
First of all, policy allows for the migaon or the aggravang of sancons. This allows supervisors, both at their discreon and their ability/movaon to arculate available facts, to increase or decrease the sancons an employee receives if they are sustained on a violaon of policy. Policy does not make it a requirement for supervisors to apply aggravang or migang factors. This enables a supervisor to cherry-pick when they go aer or protect an officer. Policy should require that aggravang and migang factors shall always be applied or alternavely, specified that neither exist to apply.
Secondly, policy allows for sancon seng among separate chains of command, to include among each precinct and bureau. Some prefer this as it allows chains of command to set sancons based upon the personal knowledge of the accused officer. Officers who have a good work reputaon with their chain of command benefit from this. Officers who do not are harmed by this. Subjecvity is introduced into this because there is sll a desire among front line supervisors and chains of command to prevent extreme punishment of officers by command staff at headquarters.
One unfortunate problem this creates for the department is that similar misconduct commied by different officers in different chains of command can be sanconed very differently. It is too easy for the discrepancy to slip through the cracks and go unnoced, even by that bureau’s chief. This creates the
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possibility for similar conduct to not only be sanconed differently but invesgated differently. Some supervisors put addional effort into their invesgaons, as well as addional skill and effort into their arculaon of facts (to help or hurt subordinates).
Not all invesgaons are conducted equally. The average OPA invesgaon is more thorough than a precinct supervisors’, and two supervisors in the same precinct can have notably different quality in their invesgaons of their assigned officers. Moreover, just because two invesgaons have the same policy finding does not necessarily mean the same conduct was involved. Again, this helps some officers and hurts others. A department wide concern is the lack of a uniform, consistent, objecve, and fair complaint and disciplinary process.
Thirdly, policy has mulple provisions which overlap or are close enough in how they are wrien, that a supervisor need only arculate one over the other, as well as minimize the documentaon of certain facts within the invesgaon, to use the desired provision either to increase or decrease the sancon.
For example, an employee who engages in a very rude, incing, or escalatory manner with a cizen on duty could be invesgated or sanconed under Courtesy or Self-Control. However, a supervisor could make a push to address the conduct under Responsibility or Conduct Becoming an Employee of the Department. Courtesy is an F category offense; Responsibility and Self-Control a D category, and Conduct Unbecoming is open range (varies by severity of violaon up to dismissal). Depending on the arculaon of facts and who the supervisors are approving the final invesgave write-up, any of these could be a possibility. This can be used to help or hurt an employee.
What can further complicate this is that whatever is determined by a lower chain of command could be overturned during the course of seling the maer before it goes to a departmental hearing, and these selements can occur irrespecve of the strength of the case facts. Hearings require a lot of effort and coordinaon.
While it is difficult to imagine any internal affairs process which does not require some degree of supervisory discreon or the possibility of seling things under other policies, MNPD’s policy and its pracce of using it warrant addional safeguards to ensure consistency and uniformity in its applicaon. This is needed to ensure improved fairness.
Too oen individual deputy chiefs or assistant chiefs have resolved cases with such a disparity in the severity of sancons, that the only reasonable conclusion is that command staff does not communicate amongst each other, properly evaluate sancons prior to issuing them or resolving cases, or consider sufficient reference cases or past precedent.
Other cases and their sancons have been referenced herein. One for contrast in severity, is one involving a detecve (IA2021-00057) who believed a man had sexually assaulted his wife and was a sexual predator. Aer discovering what had happened, he called and threatened the man (who had been a friend and pastor), but he never took any physical acon against him in person. He made efforts to communicate with him, as well as warn the man’s soon to be new wife about what he perceived to be his sexual predatory behavior.
The detecve sent an inappropriate message along with a wedding registry gi (a spatula) which read, “Here’s a spatula, in hopes that you’ll use it when you must scrape up the remains of your ruined
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marriage. Don’t ever forget me. . .” Aer this, the man told the detecve to stop communicang with him, and he stopped.
While the detecve’s acons were inappropriate, the totality of the circumstances made it clear how the other man’s conduct affected the detecve and his family. Despite this, the detecve did not do something much worse, such as seek the man out and physically harm him. The detecve was sustained on 4.20.040 Personal Behavior, D. Conduct Unbecoming an Employee of the Department, which was appropriate. The downside to this policy is that it can be sanconed all the way up to dismissal.
The detecve was sanconed with thirty (30) suspension days and a last chance agreement. The detecve ended up resigning from the department aer this case. This sancon seems absurdly excessive when compared to Thorowgood and Gooch’s (who actually engaged in physical conduct commonly viewed as assaulve in nature), as well as higher-ranking employees who received less in their cases, despite their rank and harming employees (Schmitz, Hunsicker, Hooper, and Taylor).
Addionally, Gooch received rehabilitaon to help jusfy reducing his sancon, and despite the department having quality wellness and counseling services which could have helped the detecve navigate the trauma and stressors of what he and his family experienced to move forward, the department dropped a hammer on him and ended his career. There was no effort to help him in his unique circumstances.
Somemes an officer violates mulple provisions of policy, which adds up to a substanal amount of sanconed suspension days. However, the aforemenoned cases, with the excepon of Schmitz, are either only one or two sanconed violaons. The above detecve’s case was a single violaon resulng in 30 days of suspension and a last chance agreement.
It is my assessment that this is an unfair and disproporonate amount of suspension me for his actual conduct. It was possible because the most fing policy for his conduct was an open range violaon, and command staff chose to sancon it as an A Category offense.
One soluon to some of these problems might be a single unit for reviewing invesgaons and sancons for consistency, fairness, and policy compliance across the department. However, this unit would need to be comprised of a group of individuals or structured in such a way as to reduce the chance for biases, prejudices, and irrelevant informaon from influencing outcomes. Careful aenon would need to be given to past precedent, as well as the creaon of new precedents. This would also likely require amending the disciplinary meline.
Recommendaon:
o Establish a commiee, unit, process, or person(s) who are responsible for ensuring that sancons are uniform, consistent, fair, in keeping with past precedent or the creaon of a needed new precedent, and in compliance with policy and procedures. They would need the authority to overturn, modify, or issue new sancons, as well as return cases for addional invesgaon.
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o Aggravang and migang factors should always be applied, if they exist at all. This should always be documented and specified for every sustained violaon, including their non-existence. Otherwise, aggravang and migang factors should be completely removed from policy to prevent their inconsistent applicaon from contribung to the lack of fairness in the process.
o The disciplinary grid chart should be updated. The range of each box’s sancon should be reduced, and the reason for the sancon choice—even among the opons within the grid box— should be recorded in wring. Many of the boxes have a three to six (3-6) suspension day range for the same category and offense occurrence. There is no clear policy explanaon as to what warrants giving an officer four (4) suspension days for a 1st Offense of a Category D violaon, as opposed to only a one (1) suspension day, and they are both opons. This could help with consistency and fairness.
o Addional safeguards should be enacted to ensure that pre-invesgaon selements are not used to sanize wrien records, cover up serious misconduct, reduce sancons inappropriately, and resolve maers so expediently that accountability at the MNPD is jeopardized.
Pertaining to item (2)(i):
Command staff has had frequent communicaon issues and disagreements on policy sancons, resulng in several instances of officers agreeing with and signing for sancons, only to have those sancons overturned and increased later.
The operaons of those in the command staff (the chiefs) has demonstrated an inability to effecvely communicate with each other. This is highlighted in several instances of departmental sancons being issued as a result of an OPA invesgaon, only to have those pulled and then other sancons issued.
For example, Officer Carlisle was issued what many felt were low sancons for his circumstances (IA2022-00014), but these were issued and he signed for them. Amidst polical pressure and concerns for the implicaons of Carlisle’s acons and the effect it had on the vicm and the vicm’s family, he pulled these back and issued new ones which forced Carlisle to resign.
Lt. Durbin was also issued sancons which he signed for on his case (IA2022-00024), but these were pulled. He was then given increased sancons, and he reluctantly signed for them because he was just ready to be done with the invesgaon and the disciplinary process.
I personally had sent the sancons and paperwork to Sgt. Kenny on his case (IA2023-00045), despite many of us within OPA feeling they were not sufficient. Finally aer addional communicaon was forced up the chain, those sancons were pulled for reconsideraon. I had only emailed and scheduled the presentaon with Sgt. Kenney and his aorney, Kim Gilliland, but I sll had to reach back out and cancel this meeng. Aorney Gilliland understood the implicaons that the sancons would be increasing.
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Another case was Sean Herman’s (HR2022-0011). His inial sancon was eight (8) suspension days for a violaon of MNPD Manual 4.50.020 Harassment and Discriminaon Policy. This was overturned by Chief Drake, and one month later it was increased to ten (10) suspension days with a last chance agreement. (See item eight (8) regarding MNPD’s tolerance of such behavior)
Not only is it embarrassing to employees who have to be the face of these mistakes and conduct the disciplinary processes, but it undermines the professionalism of the process itself. It puts personnel who were ready to sign and accept the punishment and responsibility for their conduct in a situaon in which they had just formally agreed with the department’s findings and sancons, to have to turn right around and sign for increased punishment.
While Chief Drake had not signed off on the disciplinary paperwork yet and it appears to be permied by policy to pull the rug out from underneath officers like this, it is unfair to the accused officers and demonstrates an inefficiency, incompetence, and failure of leadership to supervise these disciplinary processes in the furtherance of the department’s mission.
Recommendaon:
o The MNPD should enact safeguards to ensure that the sancons sent to an officer on their case have been properly veed previously by those who have a say, in order to prevent officers from signing in agreement, only to have that overturned by a higher-ranking supervisor disagreeing with those sancons.
Pertaining to item (3):
There are failures in annual evaluaons in which supervisors are discouraged from scoring poor performing officers as failing or are given instrucons to change scores, and MNPD’s current pracce, policy, and procedures with annual evaluaons should be reviewed and improved.
Two notable cases include Officer Brian Woodard’s annual evaluaon from then Sgt. Davidson and Officer Frederick Ware by Lt. James Williams. Other employees who may serve as examples of how the annual evaluaon process fails include Monica Blake, Eric Harvey, Robert Fondren, Johnny Cantrell, civilian Lawanna Coleman, and Citlaly Gomez.
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Regarding Officer Woodard’s evaluaon in 2017, he had engaged in a variety of poor performance throughout the year which he was verbally coached or instructed on or had a formal invesgaon. This culminated with an annual evaluaon with several “1’s” for his unsuccessful performance. Because of this, he failed his annual evaluaon. When this occurred, Human Resources had just coincidentally changed a few aspects of its process, including certain forms.
Human Resources had difficulty processing this failed evaluaon, and it took much longer than expected. During this, not even Sue Bibb was enrely sure which supervisor signed a certain line on the annual evaluaon form when the officer was marked as failed. In the end, I believe she instructed that Lt. Burke should sign it (but this could be double-checked).
I craed a Job Performance Improvement Plan designed to help Officer Woodard work through his behaviors and conduct which were holding him back from being successful. This followed him to his next work assignment, which was North B-detail under Lieutenant Vivyonne Lee. He connued to have issues there, including a supposed ghost pursuit which resulted in damage to his vehicle. In the end, I do not believe the JPIP was fully supervised or implemented by his new chain of command, and I do not think the failed evaluaon score was retained or instuted by HR.
Failures from HR enforcing the failed score, as well as with the JPIP implementaon, likely contributed to his ability to stay with the MNPD. Eventually, he engaged in another gross act of misconduct in which he was criminally charged and terminated, bringing discredit to the MNPD.
Regarding Officer Frederick Ware, it is my understanding that Lieutenant James Williams had already placed Officer Ware on a JPIP for certain performance issues. Ulmately, the JPIP was not successful, and Lt. Williams marked Ware’s evaluaon as failing. In the end, the policy implicaons of this was not seen through, and pressure came down Lt. Williams’ chain of command, resulng in him relenng and changing the evaluaon score in order to pass Ware rather than push back.
The internal departmental pressures (typically arising from Human Resources and supported by higher ranking sworn supervisors) with officer evaluaons results in inaccurate evaluaons. Poor performing officers are oen “marked down the middle” as “2’s” rather than giving specific, meaningful scores which reflect actual performance during their annual review.
In turn, these evaluaons can be used by poor performing officers and their aorneys to argue against departmental sancons or acons because it serves as proof of meeng standards, rather than failing performance. This creates a liability for the department. These evaluaons can be used in future ligaon, hearings, or processes to further enable a problem employee to keep their job. Past sasfactory performance, especially during the me frame of an allegaon, is used to argue against or migate the sancons of other misconduct.
Lower ranking supervisors, typically sergeants, are also hesitant to score poor performing personnel low because it would affect the officer’s pay. The addional complicaons with having to implement a Job Performance Improvement Plan and how to navigate this process, makes it troublesome for even commied supervisors who want to use all available means to correct poor performance.
Departmental management and use of annual evaluaons should be improved. The department should consider removing any correlaon between evaluaons and pay, even if this requires seeking
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changes to civil service rules. If officers are not actually permied to receive a pay increase from meritorious conduct, they should likewise have the threat of a pay decrease removed. This would remove pressures on supervisors from scoring up or down for reasons unrelated to actual performance.
I believe it is sufficient that successful employees are retained and coached on addional steps they can take to further improve their performance. Similarly, it is sufficient that poor performing (failing/unsuccessful) employees are placed on a Job Performance Improvement Plan which must be successfully passed or be terminated. This provides a mechanism for coaching and training failing employees back up, and officers commied to the MNPD and improving their performance will do so.
Moreover, supervisors need addional training and direcon on how to coach and actually manage their employees “up.” Annual evaluaons are too oen seen as an inconvenient, rote task which must be completed for a subordinate employee at the last minute. Instead, it should be seen as the culminaon of the last year’s supervisory efforts to help that subordinate succeed at the MNPD. Supervisors should not be waing unl the end of the year to drop a hammer on failing employees as if that is all that maers for managing them; rather, unsuccessful employees should see it coming.
They should be keenly aware of whether they are meeng supervisory expectaons throughout the year, and if not, directed and coached to bring them up to where they need to be. If they cannot make this, then they should not be surprised to fail their evaluaon.
Annual evaluaons are one an important mechanism the department has at its disposal in order to idenfy and remove problem employees who regularly engage in misconduct or poor performance which undermines the MNPD’s mission and public trust.
Recommendaon:
o Update policy and (even Civil Service Rules for police, if needed) to make annual evaluaons irrelevant for officer pay, as well as to support supervisors’ ability to document failed employee performance to enhance the MNPD’s ability to hold officers performing below acceptable standards accountable.
o Addional training should be provided to all employees regarding performance evaluaons. Officers need to understand the purpose of evaluaons, as well as how they can get the most out of their annual performance review. Supervisors need to understand how to successfully manage and coach subordinates all year long, as well as how to properly handle the evaluaon process.
o Meaningful and relevant guidelines and training should be provided for handling an employee whose performance is going to result in a failed annual evaluaon, as well as best pracce for documenng these facts. When a supervisor provides a sufficient factual basis for failing an employee, HR and others should not pressure supervisors to alter evaluaon scores. Any changes should come only as the result of an appeal process filed by the affected employee.
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Relevant Policy Provisions from MNPD Manual: 3.10 Employee Performance Evaluaons 3.10.010 Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to establish departmental policy and procedure for conducng employee performance evaluaons and ensuring annual criminal history checks are completed, thus ensuring the highest levels of departmental standards of performance.
3.10.020 Policy
In accordance with the Metro Charter and the Civil Service Rules, each employee’s job performance shall be evaluated on at least an annual basis. Addional evaluaons may be done when necessary or required by current job descripon. The requirements of the posion constute the standards of performance or the basis upon which supervisors will rate the efficiency of employees. The standard of performance shall be the minimum level of performance expected aer a reasonable period of training for a fully qualified, competent and acceptable employee. The goal of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) is to establish a performance evaluaon system enabling employees to exceed those standards.
3.10.040 General Provisions
A. Performance evaluaons are used to give employees feedback on their job performance, to help them improve future performance and to document performance for the following purposes:
1. To complete probaon or work test. Employee Performance
2. To determine whether or not an employee’s performance meets the standard required to proceed to the next pay increment.
3. To determine eligibility for promoons and advancement.
4. As an aid in determining layoff acons.
5. To determine reemployment eligibility; and
6. To facilitate other Human Resource (HR) decisions which may be appropriately determined by employee performance.
3.10.050 Procedures
C. Prior to any performance evaluaon period the supervisor shall meet with the employee for a planning session to mutually agree on job responsibilies, goals, and the measurement criteria. The Performance Feedback Form shall be used to document this meeng and is available from the Metro Human Resources Division online.
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D. Supervisors shall connually observe the performance of employees under their direct responsibility in order to facilitate an annual evaluaon that is beneficial to both the employee and the department.
E. Annual Performance Evaluaon1. All employees’ job performance shall be evaluated on at least an annual basis. 2. Employees shall be rated on the following scale:
a. 1 – Needs Improvement: Performance does not meet minimum acceptable standards, expectaons, and requirements of the job, or is below what can be expected of average performance. Employee requires a high level of supervision or assistance to accomplish work results. Improvement is necessary to meet desired level of performance results.
b. 2 – Successful: Performance meets acceptable standards, expectaons, and requirements. Performance contributes what is expected of a qualified, experienced employee performing in this posion.
c. 3 – Exceponal: Consistently meets standards and expectaons, regularly exceeds them, and shows iniave in addional assignments. Successfully completes all responsibilies, even for projects that require versale skills. Employee strives to grow professionally through development acvies.
3. Any rang found to be “Needs Improvement” or “Exceponal” must include a wrien explanaon of the deficiency and suggesons for improvement, or explanaon of exemplary performance, whichever is applicable.
4. The reviewer shall evaluate the form for correctness and compliance with procedures, sign it, and return it to the rater.
H. Employee Job Performance Improvement Plan (JPIP)
1. A Job Performance Improvement Plan (JPIP), MNPD Form 309, shall be ulized if an employee’s performance is rated less than acceptable on any performance evaluaon and addionally may be used any me it is determined an employee’s performance is below an acceptable standard (Refer to Department Manual Chapter 3.20 governing Employee Job Performance Improvement Plan).
2. Supervisors shall ensure wrien noficaon of unsasfactory performance is provided to the employee at least ninety (90) days prior to the end of their annual rang period, when applicable.
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Pertaining to item (4):
The Metro Nashville Police Department was involved in the process of craing and advising legislaon (SB 0591/HB 0764) to reduce the Metro Nashville Community Oversight and Community Oversight Board’s ability to operate and hold the MNPD accountable, and this is further proof of a greater trending problem with MNPD leadership’s disciplinary pracces and aversion to external oversight of any kind.
Deputy Chief Gilder and Assistant Chief Hagar were principally involved in this, but their efforts were known among leadership, including Chief Drake. Aer legislaon was successfully passed, Director Morante requested that DC Gilder come to the OPA Division under the guise of teaching the OPA Division about the implicaons of the law change and its effect upon the COB, but it was actually in order to present him with an award for his work on the law. He was presented with a small, laser engraved crystal-style award in front of nearly the enre OPA Division.
The department’s effort and DC Gilder’s work to change COB law undoes efforts made to create transparency and build trust with Nashvillians. It upends progress in creang a culture of accountability with the public, eliminates a specific mechanism of this, and further enables the department to insulate its own culture of how accountability is performed or not performed. The acons taken to undermine, constrain, and eliminate the ability of the Nashville COB to engage in meaningful oversight represents an unethical conflict of interest and raises grave concerns about accountability and transparency with the MNPD.
Chief Hagar and Chief Gilder have both historically had a significant role in handling how the MNPD responds to COB/MNCO inquiries and maers, the department’s corresponding strategizing, and compliance efforts. It is unethical—duplicitous at best—for the leadership of an execuve agency to hand-in-hand assist in the creaon of legislaon intended to curb oversight of its operaons.
Were this done publicly, with a campaign of transparency as to their basis for doing so, that might be palatable, but organizaons like the FOP exist to lobby outside of the department itself. Open lobbying by an execuve agency to change laws effecng its operaons are one thing, but secretly being party to the legislave process in order to reduce accountability to its stakeholders is a betrayal of public trust and serves departmental interest rather than the public’s.
This new legislaon decreases the ability of the COB to hold the MNPD accountable and decreases the aendant workload on the individuals who helped with the legislaon; therefore, this is a gross conflict of interest which goes exactly against transparency and modern policing principles.
The efforts to guide and assist with this legislaon marked a concerted effort by the department to subvert local law in order to have something more favorable, and rather than doing this openly, transparently, as part of a broader conversaon and effort in the eyes of the public, this was done clandesnely, behind closed doors, with contact with lawmakers believed to have been kept off official records. While there were concerns regarding the law Nashvillians put in place, at the end of the day, local cizens and their government put it in place to address specific concerns. The department has spit in their face by finding a soluon which rather effecvely overturns the will of Nashvillians.
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The context and circumstances in which this has occurred also does not bode well. Considering my other concerns laid out regarding top leadership’s handling of disciplinary maers and the assignment of a commander to OPA, it is apparent that top leadership is maneuvering for unimpeded control and influence over OPA and the disciplinary process. The context requires addional explanaon in order to help understand why this is so problemac.
During Chief Anderson’s tenure, the decision was made to bring Director Morante over to the department to lead OPA. This was done as a compromise and effort to ward off Nashville geng a community oversight board back then. By appoinng a civilian prosecutor, the department could show a good-faith effort to be introducing an outside, non-police mindset to handling officer misconduct, which occasionally includes criminal allegaons. This was a compromise to avoid greater external accountability.
The creaon and implementaon of the COB by Nashvillian voters caused having a civilian director to become an irrelevant benefit for the department. Director Morante and Assistant Chief Hagar have not been on good terms for some me, especially given how maers were handled with Lt. Hammond’s case (IA2018-00008).
Around six (6) months aer I became the OPA lieutenant, Commander Starling was moved over to OPA to introduce a captain-level rank between myself and Director Morante. In some ways, this was long overdue because the number of responsibilies and tasks the lieutenant had was expansive and included things typically handled by a captain-rank officer.
However, I believe the primary reasons for this change was the reality that one-day, probably sooner than later, Director Morante would rere, and the plan is to not re-staff her posion. The department is going to move away from having a civilian director. It is no longer necessary as a deterrent to having a COB. There are pros and cons to having a civilian director as the highest-ranking supervisor of OPA, and I believe some of the other command staff have bumped heads with her (for example, Chief Richter and Hagar).
Addionally, when I was the highest-ranking sworn supervisor of OPA, I was reluctant to entertain outside influence in OPA’s invesgaons, and I limited the flow of informaon to command staff to primarily case melines, rather than facts and details about the invesgaon. I did not want these leaking through the department and possibly to witnesses or the accused. I was also willing to speak up about consistency with sancons, even with deputy chiefs. Commander Starling is much more accommodang to sharing case facts and details than I was.
Here is how this all comes full circle. Department leadership has helped overturn legislaon designed to provide oversight, interferes with invesgaons and their outcomes for unjusfied, non- factual and non-policy reasons, has quesonable open record pracces, has appointed a favorable ranking officer to facilitate their reach into OPA operaons, and intends to further reduce the influence and benefit of a civilian through the eliminaon of the civilian OPA director posion once she leaves. Both external and internal mechanisms of addressing police employee misconduct have been reduced or eliminated, and they are on a trajectory to connue to do so.
OPA once prided itself on being an independent, fact-driven division which answered directly to the Police Chief without those in the middle interfering. This doesn’t mean that OPA was ever perfect or
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always got things right. Accountability of those engaging in misconduct is eroding at the MNPD, and this is being driven not by those invesgang the misconduct but by a leadership willing to pull the strings to get the results they want, rather than the results the facts and public demand.
An analysis of the law as it stands now, as well as the arguments and responses the MNPD has put forth to CRB requests since going into effect, are informave as to the effort and intenonality put into the new legislaon. Effort was given to ensure the law was comprehensive and beneficial enough for the MNPD to leverage it rounely going forward to avoid external accountability. Henceforth, every me the MNPD cites the new law as jusficaon for anything, it should be an affront to the public.
Because of the above, the MNPD’s acons should be reviewed to see if they constuted a violaon of “home rule” and actually resulted in the passage of a law designed to target Nashville’s COB.
Recommendaon:
o Because this alleged conduct reflects poorly upon the MNPD, is detrimental to the respect and confidence of the Nashville community, and brings discredit upon the MNPD and its specifically accused members, this should be invesgated as an allegaon of a violaon of 4.20.040 Personal Behavior, D. Conduct Unbecoming an Employee of the Department against Chief Gilder and Chief Hagar.
o The invesgaon should use all means to establish both on and off-duty communicaons and efforts that went into advancing the new legislaon, as well as what conduct occurred during and outside of normal working hours. The invesgaon should proceed where it is warranted, even if this includes Chief Drake and others becoming an accused employee.
o Addionally, if sustained, those in leadership who knew about this conduct but failed to take acon to either stop it or report it, should be found in violaon of 4.10. Discipline and Correcve Acon, C.
Pertaining to item (5):
There has been a detrimental reducon in training hours for recruits in the training academy and in the field training program which jeopardizes the training new officers receives, as well as overall departmental operaons and employee performance, and the changed training landscape warrants a new invesgave finding and sancon.
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The MNPD’s training academy was approximately 23 weeks long for many years. This provided sufficient opportunity to for police trainees to acclimate to the demands of becoming a police officer and develop the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilies (KSA’s). Currently, the training academy duraon has been reduced to approximately 19 weeks, marking an approximate month decrease in overall training. Moreover, the actual field training program has reduced the amount of me new recruits ride with a Field Training Officer to learn how to implement their KSA’s in the real world. Lateral officers have a very brief field training rotaon of approximately four (4) weeks.
The training academy and field training program are career-crical mes for new MNPD police employees. During these training phases, new police employees learn not only develop their policing KSA’s, but they begin orienng to the challenges and demands of what policing is. Their character is evaluated and tested; their physical and mental preparedness are established; and their actual capacity to serve as an MNPD officer is determined.
The MNPD is in a constant fight with employee arion and hiring challenges, resulng in a constant need for new employees. While this is true reality which requires aenon, reducing the amount of training new employees receive in the most formave me of their career is detrimental to their individual long-term success, as well as detrimental to the public interest of having the most qualified and ready officers serving them. It promises more officers on the front-end and more arion/turn-over on the back-end.
The department has pushed back on claims about the potenal issues the reduced training melines creates by arguing that “training standards” have not been lowered. It is true that the department is sll meeng Tennessee POST standards and all the minimum benchmarks, but overall training hours has been reduced. Even if items have been removed from the training curriculum which were deemed non-crical, these training me slots could be replaced with addional training in core skills, such as: de-escalaon, use of force, vehicle operaon, body-worn camera pracces and procedures, role-playing scenarios, firearms instrucon, traffic stops, and roune but complex incident types, such as domesc violence or DUI invesgaon which have been over-represented in misconduct invesgaons and lawsuits.
Addionally, the training academy and field training program provide crical opportunies to evaluate the character of new employees. Training instructors are skilled at idenfying the red-flags that indicate a trainee is a future problem employee. Training instructors and field training officers have a unique opportunity and window of me to observe whether new employees possess the integrity, judgment, emoonal intelligence, self-discipline, and overall professionalism expected of all employees. Cung these training phases short only increases the likelihood of trainees with disqualifying character to become a street officer.
As it stands now, there are already vulnerabilies in the training phases which should be shored up to remove trainees demonstrang disqualifying character. Firstly, training instructors should be given an increased ability to document and report specific concerns up their chain of command in wring, without fear of reprisal, and supervisors should be required to document their response in wring.
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Secondly, it is anecdotally widely expressed in the department that many of the field training officers are only doing the role for the increased pay it brings, and they are not properly instrucng new officers. While there are certainly many FTO’s who do the role well and enjoy the added responsibility of training up new officers, the department should do more to ensure that FTO’s who are not fulfilling their roles be removed from their role quickly. The FTO program is too crical a me period in a new officer’s career to jeopardize. New employees can learn very bad behaviors and develop training scars which will reveal themselves later in that employee’s career, oen with devastang effect.
Supervisors and OPA invesgators have all witnessed the unfortunate phenomena of trainees passing their training phases despite the number of training instructors, field training officers, class mates, and others who knew the employee would be a problem for the department. Somemes this informaon comes out during an invesgaon into misconduct; other mes it is simply a widespread knowledge in which many people share their own anecdotes about the stupid, dangerous, or unethical conduct they or others have witnessed the employee commit.
As a part of my Northwestern School of Police Staff and Command staff study, I interviewed mulple current and prior training academy instructors and field training officers. I learned from them that there are widespread concerns about the current effecveness of the training academy instrucon and field training programs, as well as command staff decisions relang to these areas.
Addionally, 2020 marked a substanal change in policing for a two-year period, resulng in a “covid generaon” of officers who received their training during a highly unusual me period. Things they did or experienced during those years may be locked into their minds and habits as “normal.” This has le training scars on many of these officers, and some of these officers have now become field training officers and sergeants. Some of these officers’ careers will bear the unfortunate fruit of becoming a police officer during this period, and this is not their fault.
The changing dynamics of training at the MNPD across the years and responsible divisions has a direct impact on officers’ ability to learn, retain, and apply policy, procedures, and training. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that officers will commit violaons of procedures and training, especially on tasks requiring more complex KSA’s. This has been exacerbated by forces both within and outside of the MNPD’s control. The responsibilies and complexies of policing at the MNPD have only connued to grow and show no signs of slowing.
In order to account for this and provide a means of retaining employees of character who simply need addional training, disciplinary policy should be revised to include the possibility for “training required” as an invesgave finding (or something similar). Remedial training should be added to the disciplinary grid chart as a possible sancon in-of-itself.
Policy should be updated to reflect that when an employee engages in a minor, non-intenonal violaon of a specific policy, procedure, or training which appears to be the result of the employee being unfamiliar with the task or incident at hand and that addional training would address this conduct, then remedial training shall be recommended and completed WITHOUT addional correcve or disciplinary acon for that violaon. As it stands now, such a violaon would generally be punished as a Category D violaon (1-4 days of suspension) if it was a one-me violaon or as a 4.20.050 Official Obligaons, F. Deficient / Inefficient Performance of Duty offense, which would require a full JPIP, in addion to any other sancon.
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I would argue a minor policy violaon can generally be designated as “Category D” or lower, but I do not believe MNPD policy actually designates this. A “training required” finding and sancon should be limited to a single, first-me sustained violaon for a specific provision of policy or procedure involving a performed task or responsibility. It should never be considered for a maer involving a queson of integrity.
An example of this might be if an officer fails to administer the Standard Field Sobriety Tasks correctly and/or other aspects of a DUI invesgaon but makes a good-faith effort to complete the process. If the facts show the officer did not intenonally mishandle this incident and this was a first- me violaon discovered during a complaint invesgaon, then this would be an ideal me to consider the “training required” finding.
This invesgave finding and sancon recognizes that KSA’s generally deteriorate over-me and when not used regularly; that some tasks and incident types are very complex but not regularly encountered by individual officers; that officers are tasked with an ever-increasing amount of responsibilies; that officers should not be overly punished when making good-faith efforts to do what is required; that organizaons can create excellence and promote success by removing some of the fear of failure; to further encourage officers to take responsibility for even their unintenonal mistakes, learn from it, and grow; to provide a tool to supervisors to help their officers grow, without feeling like they have to drop a hammer on their officers; and that some cizens hesitate to file or follow through with complaints due to not wanng to overly-punish officers but would sll like them to receive addional training to prevent the conduct from occurring again.
Subsequent violaons of the same policy which had previously been sancon with “training required” would be processed in accordance with exisng policy and procedures, to include being treated as a 2nd offense if it occurred within the listed retenon period.
Recommendaon:
o The MNPD should return to historic training academy and field training program lengths and implement addional training in core KSA’s, as well as any areas determined where officers are rounely engaging in violaons of policy, procedure, or training, to include trends idenfied by OPA.
o The department should evaluate its training program, duraon, phases, and personnel in order to determine whether improvements should be made which idenfy and remove new employees deemed too likely to engage in future misconduct. Poor performance and character during training phases is indicave of poor performance and character when no longer under the constant scruny of trainers. It is much easier to remove the trainee when they are sll on probaon rather than once they are off probaon and engage in misconduct.
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o Training instructors should be given an increased ability to document and report specific concerns up their chain of command in wring, without fear of reprisal, and supervisors should be required to document their response in wring.
o Deficiencies in the field training program and its FTO’s should be addressed to ensure that only qualified, movated officers are conducng training.
o Implement new “training required” invesgave finding/sancon and update policy, in the spirit of what is described above.
Pertaining to item (6):
There is a pracce of idenfying violaons of policy and procedure through monthly body-worn camera audits, without supervisors properly addressing these in accordance with departmental policy, allowing repeat offenders to amass mulple BWC audits without facing consequences.
The Body Worn Camera/In-Car Camera Unit (BIU) completes monthly audits of officers’ BWC footage in order to idenfy violaons of policy (8.30.240 Auding and Review Processes, B., 1. BWC/ICC Division Audit). If a review idenfies possible violaons, these are documented, and the audit form is routed to that officer’s chain of command to cause addional review of that officer’s conduct to be completed by the officer’s supervisor. Subsequently, that supervisor must document the acon they took to address it.
Concerns had existed for quite a while within the BIU regarding the prevalence and frequency of supervisors not properly addressing officers’ conduct, and the BIU noted that they had individuals who had easily half-a-dozen or more of these audits without any actual formal acon being taken to address the officer’s repeated violaons of policy or BWC usage.
The department began a step in the right direcon to address serious instances of misconduct by having forms sent through OPA for a preliminary review before they were routed to the officers’ chains of command for resoluon. Nevertheless, it is sll too prevalent an issue that front line supervisors are not using progressive discipline to appropriately address violaons being discovered and documented by the BIU. Far too oen supervisors are doing nothing more than having a quick conversaon with officers engaging in conduct flagged during an audit.
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Currently, the department is documenng that it has the pracce of idenfying policy and procedure violaons through reviewing BWC, sending the issues to chains of command to be addressed, and then supervisors rounely not addressing them in accordance with exisng policy and procedures.
This is facilitang the creaon of a workplace culture that the audits lack meaning and do not require serious aenon by officers or supervisors, and liabilies are being created which undermine the department’s credibility, effecveness, and commitment to accountability.
Recommendaon:
o There should be an invesgaon into current department pracce to ensure that BWC audit policies are being followed in pracce, as well as to idenfy soluons to address the lack of appropriate handling of idenfied issues.
o Captain Whited, Lt. Teerton, and other sergeants of the BWC unit can provide much more insight into the state of this issue, its history, and provide examples of officers who have amassed audits without proper handling from their supervisors. They keep thorough records and are good sources for understanding more about this issue and possible soluons.
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Pertaining to item (7):
The MNPD misrepresented and falsely reported to the COB and Mayor’s office that it had a funconal Force Invesgaon Team (FIT) prior to its actual implementaon.
The Metro Nashville Community Oversight reported on August 27, 2021 in their Evaluaon of MNPD’s Use of Force Policy Revision for Consistency with Policy Recommendaons under item eight (8) of the COB Recommendaons Related to the Use of Force Policy that the MNPD had accepted and parally incorporated the recommendaon for a Force Invesgaon Team (FIT). The updated OPA SOP was quoted, and the OPA SOP was wrien as if the FIT existed.
This was just before I was appointed to OPA as lieutenant on October 1, 2021. When I was appointed, there was no FIT. All of my personnel were exclusively assigned to OPA as invesgators, and we had no members designated separately for or specially trained for use-of-force invesgaons.
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It is my understanding that Director Morante made requests for personnel and resources to facilitate this, but these were delayed and ignored. Nevertheless, the MNPD represented OPA to the public as having a FIT and that it was in compliance with the MNCO recommendaon. There were several officer-involved shoongs which occurred before the MNPD actually formed FIT, and one of these was the January 2022 incident involving Mr. Landon Eastep. OPA detecves did respond to invesgate that incident, but there was no FIT.
Serious aenon was not given to the non-existence of the FIT unl around Spring of 2023 when OPA Sergeant Arevalo was promoted to Lieutenant and retained at OPA in order to work on creang the FIT. As a part of this effort, he was directed to aend addional use of force training and visit other departments to observe and learn how their FIT’s operated and bring this back to the MNPD for consideraon of implementaon. Once tasked with forming the FIT, Lt. Arevalo worked relessly and blamelessly to help expedite this, but he was limited in what he could do without addional assistance from leadership.
It is my understanding that Commander Starling and Director Morante made repeated aempts to request personnel, and these requests primarily went through Assistant Chief Greene and Chief Drake. Despite this, I do not believe actual personnel were re-assigned to provide FIT with actual invesgators unl early 2024, a lile less than three (3) years aer reporng in policy / SOP that the FIT existed.
During my me at OPA, I gave addional aenon to our use of force invesgaons, including the one involving Mr. Eastep, and I aempted to find ways to make our invesgaons more robust, arculate, and thorough. Nevertheless, OPA did not actually possess a FIT. We operated with what we had, which was our normal OPA detecves and the training they already possessed. Much of our own officer involved shoong invesgaons was heavily dependent upon the TBI invesgaon, and we added our own policy review.
The MNPD was not transparent about its FIT progress and should have reported that it existed only as an idea on paper and as a commitment to the MNCO. The department misrepresented the FIT to the MNCO, the mayor’s office, the public, and even its own officers. The FIT was not a priority of the MNPD leadership, as clearly evident by the easily reviewable melines of transfers and appointments of personnel to the FIT.
Recommendaon:
o There should be an invesgaon into the causes of reporng that the FIT existed when it did not and hold the principal personnel responsible for both the false communicaon and the lack personnel and resources being moved to facilitate its creaon in a mely manner.
o The MNPD should create a policy that requires officers involved in any use of force related crical incident to be placed on administrave leave for a minimum of three working days, with approval being needed to return to their normal assignment. This should be done to avoid decommissioning officers when the opcs of an incident appear bad; to provide the MNPD the opportunity to conduct addional preliminary invesgaon before making such a decision; to
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eliminate any ambiguity about an officer’s work status following an incident; and to give involved officers some degree of certainty that they will have me to prepare before returning to their normal assignment; and to create a window of me for counseling to occur before officers return to work.
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Pertaining to item (8):
The department has failed to implement an actual zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment and discriminaon; fails to properly communicate with or help employees affected by such conduct; and does not do enough to ensure violators cannot commit future inappropriate conduct.
Mayor Cooper’s 2020 Policing Policy Commission report recommended that the MNPD create a “zero tolerance” policy around sexual assault and sexual harassment, and the department does not seem to view gender discriminaon as seriously as it should.
Lt. Schmitz case highlights an example of how the department, despite the invesgave findings, did not sancon a ranking supervisor commensurate with his established conduct which was reported by female employees as harassing and/or gender discriminaon. The lieutenant was not even demoted, despite the serious concerns about his treatment of those he supervised. Alongside that case was the noted lack of communicaon with the employee(s) harmed by his conduct.
Another example of the department failing to take decisive acon against an employee for established violaons of sexual harassment, was Sean Herman’s case (HR2022-0011). The officer received too lile disciplinary sancon for his conduct, and this employee went on to engage in other inappropriate conduct through being recorded on an Only Fans video groping a woman during a simulated traffic stop. He was subsequently terminated.
There have been repeated concerns expressed regarding how the MNPD invesgates these allegaons, treats those harmed by it, and handles the disciplinary and sanconing of proven violators. The department has established that it does not have a zero-tolerance policy on such conduct in light of its established pracce, despite what Chief Drake has said in the past and that departmental policy says the MNPD, “will not tolerate, condone, or allow harassment or discriminaon by employees or of employees” (4.50.020 Policy).
It does not punish such conduct severely enough to create a culture of zero-tolerance. The number of law suits and selements, complaints, and documented failures, make this clear. Addionally, past cases make it clear that even male employees have been affected by such conduct.
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Recommendaon:
o The department should adopt a zero-tolerance policy, increase the frequency of communicaon with complainants during the enre invesgave and disciplinary process, and communicate sancons with the complainant prior to issuing them to the accused.
o In order to inform MNPD’s harassment and discriminaon policy in a meaningful way, the department should form two large commiees (one for men, another for women) of officers of all ranks. There should be meaningful discussions about what conduct constutes terminatable/dismissible conduct, what help those harmed should receive, communicaon expectaons, and more, and these commiee meengs should be moderated by non-Metro Government subject maer experts who will in turn provide insights to leaderships.
It is possible that the majority of police employees have similar thoughts and feelings about what conduct is so unacceptable it should result in terminaon, as well as what conduct is unacceptable but may be suitable for a lower punishment and addional training.
o The goal of these meengs is not to design new policy or procedures which replaces legal or professional standards; rather, it is to improve MNPD’s policy, procedures, and training to enhance how it meets the needs and expectaons of its employees.
Employees should be given the opportunity to be seen and heard. This may yield valuable insights which help the MNPD going forward.
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Pertaining to item (9):
Despite recommendaons from outside sources, such as the 2020 Policing Policy Commission Report, Metro Nashville Community Oversight, and Nashville Mayor’s office, the MNPD leadership connue to disregard aempts by external groups or persons to increase accountability and implement needed changes, and even agreed upon changes are slow to be implemented or ulmately not implemented at all.
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As referenced elsewhere within this filing of complaints, there are mulple instances of the MNPD agreeing to implement recommendaons from the 2020 Policing Policy Commission or MNCO and ulmately not doing so (zero tolerance of harassment/discriminaon) or are incredibly slow to do so, even while falsely reporng its earlier implementaon (FIT team). As noted above, there is also the effort that went into legislaon.
Addionally, other problems have been noted which have been disregarded altogether, such as in the 2020 Commission which idenfied MNPD’s inconsistent disciplinary applicaon, compleng decommissioned officer invesgaons expediently, and holding disciplinary hearings within 45 days of compleng invesgaons.
A recent example of the department holding an invesgaon open for a prolonged period of me is Sergeant Kenny’s case (IA2023-00045). I believe it has been at least six (6) months since the case was finalized and inial sancons issued, and he sll has not had his departmental hearing. The department connues to cherry pick cases and delay them from going to a departmental hearing for reasons outside of policy and procedure. In my esmaon, these are violaons of employees’ due process rights.
Recommendaon:
o A comprehensive review of agreed upon recommendaons and commitments should be compiled and assessed for compliance. Those items which have not been completed should be noted and a renewed meline for compliance be implemented in such a way as to promote public transparency and accountability.
o Recommendaons or idenfied problems from the above listed external sources, which never received a direct answer as to the department’s commitment to address—as well as items which the department declined to address—should be reconsidered for implementaon.
END OF DOCUMENT
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