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There’s been a steep rise in Nashville police using force — but it follows new requirements for officer reporting

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Courtesy Metro Nashville Police Department
Before this year, MNPD did not require officers to report when they used a technique called "soft empty hand control."
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Many large cities track the number of times police officers lay hands on civilians, but until this year Nashville did not. The change in reporting requirements has caused a balloon in use-of-force numbers.

In policing, “soft empty hand control” is a technique that can include grabbing, takedowns or causing someone pain by touching their pressure points.

This is the first year that MNPD is requiring officers to report this type of use of force, according to the department.

Courtesy Metro Nashville Community Oversight

In training, Nashville police learn about a use of force continuum, which ranges from the mere presence of an officer to deadly force. This diagram has changed with the new policy which requires officers to report when they use soft empty hand control.

Jill Fitcheard of the Community Oversight Board says the numbers reveal how often police interactions with the public are becoming physical.

“It’s greater transparency,” says Fitcheard. “It protects all parties involved, as well as it holds the police department accountable. … We know exactly how many times they are using what we consider force.”

Fitcheard’s board requested the change last year.

Before officers were mandated to report soft empty hand control, there were about 100 or 200 reports of that type of force annually according to MNPD data. Officers often didn’t report those types of incidents, unless someone was injured or officers also used a higher level use of force in the same interaction.

Now that they are tracking, the numbers show how common this use of force really is.

In 2022 there were more than 1,600 incidents — making up more than 85% of all reported use-of-force applications this year.

Fitcheard says once they have a few years of data, they’ll be able to make further recommendations.

“The most powerful thing that you have is your ability to communicate,” Fitcheard says. “And if you’re able to use those tactics, I think that that is so much better than putting your hands on people, because most times what that does is escalate situations.”

Paige Pfleger, Criminal Justice Reporter

Paige Pfleger covers criminal justice for WPLN News. She has investigated guns and juvenile justice as a fellow with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network, and her investigation into domestic violence and firearms dispossession won a regional Edward R. Murrow award and was a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and a Livingston Award. She previously covered criminal justice and addiction in Ohio and was named the state's reporter of the year by the Associated Press. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR, The Washington Post, Marketplace, and PRI's The World, and she has worked in the newsrooms of The Tennessean, Michigan Radio, WHYY, Vox and NPR headquarters in DC.

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