When Officer Andrew Delke killed Daniel Hambrick, he became the first Nashville police officer to be charged with murder for an on-duty shooting. But he’s not the first to kill a civilian, nor the first white officer to kill a Black man.
In fact, 45 years earlier, another white police officer in Nashville went on trial for killing a Black man. He was found guilty of minor charges, but never sent to jail. That same year, a different police shooting spurred protests and calls for more oversight of the department. And then there was another shooting. And another.
In this episode, we dissect half a century of trauma, anger and escalating distrust as one death after the next failed to bring about police reform. And we try to understand why this shooting is the one that’s going to a murder trial.
WPLN News Investigates: Deadly Force is a production of Nashville Public Radio. Written, produced and sound designed by Samantha Max. Edited by Chas Sisk, Emily Siner, Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Meribah Knight and Dwight Lewis. Fact-checked by Daniel Potter. Chas Sisk, Meribah Knight and Tony Gonzalez also contributed reporting. Find the rest of this podcast at wpln.org/deadlyforce.
Samantha Max WPLN News (File)Since moving to Nashville in 1967, longtime activist Walter Searcy has witnessed a cycle here in Nashville: a police officer kills someone. There are calls for reform. And hardly anything changes. He hopes Daniel Hambrick’s death will break that cycle.
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