Last week, WPLN News and ProPublica published our year-long investigation: “Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.”
The investigation was produced in partnership with ProPublica for its Local Reporting Network.
Simultaneously, our own Meribah Knight‘s reporting partner, Ken Armstrong, shared a Twitter thread written by them both summarizing their findings, which unbeknownst to them at the time, would go viral and get the attention of big names in both journalism (like Dan Rather, Yamiche Alcindor, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Soledad O’Brien, and Joy-Ann Reid) and beyond (like George Takei, Bernice King, Gabrielle Union, Jaime Harrison, and Aisha Tyler).
Read the thread for yourself below — and listen to Meribah’s interview with WPLN morning host Nina Cardona about the findings by clicking the play button above.
Three police officers went to an *elementary* school in Tennessee & arrested four Black girls.
One girl fell to her knees. Another threw up. Police handcuffed the youngest, an 8 yo with pigtails.
Their supposed crime? Watching some boys fight — and not stopping them. (THREAD)
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
2/ The police wound up arresting 11 kids in total, using a charge called “criminal responsibility.”
The arrests created outrage. State lawmakers called the case “unconscionable,” “inexcusable,” “insane.”
So how did this happen?
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
3/ These arrests took place in Rutherford County, which had been illegally jailing kids for years, all under the watch of Judge Donna Scott Davenport.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
4/ Donna Scott Davenport is the only elected juvenile court judge the county has ever had.
She oversees the courts.
She oversees the juvenile jail.
She directed police on what she called “our process” for arresting children.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
5/ In this deposition, a lawyer asks Davenport about taking the bar exam.
It took her nine years and five attempts to pass.
Three years after she got her law license, she was on the bench. pic.twitter.com/VIAmakwDGf
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
6/ Davenport describes her work as a calling.
“I’m here on a mission. It’s God’s mission,” she once told a newspaper.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
7/ She says children must have consequences. She encourages parents to use drug-testing kits on their kids. “Don’t buy them at the Dollar Tree,” she says. “The best ones are your reputable drug stores.”
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
8/ Under Davenport, Rutherford County locked up a staggering 48% of children whose cases were referred to juvenile court.
The statewide average was 5%.
This graphic shows detention rates for juvenile courts in Tennessee. Rutherford County is on the far right. pic.twitter.com/ORRVeqVJx3
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
9/ Lynn Duke, appointed by Davenport, is the county’s head jailer.
Tennessee narrowly limits when kids can be locked up. But Duke had her own way: the “filter system.”
Her jail locked up any kid deemed a “TRUE threat.”
As for what’s a “TRUE threat,” her handbook didn’t say.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
10/ In a videotaped deposition, Duke was asked when the filter system applied. “Depends on the situation,” she said repeatedly.
A lawyer asked Duke, “Is it your policy or not?”
“No. Yes. It — it’s a policy to use it when necessary,” Duke said. pic.twitter.com/mHvubJ3Kyl
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
11/ Duke reports monthly to county commissioners, who liken the jail to a business and ask often about the number of beds filled.
“Just like a hotel,” one commissioner says in this video.
“With breakfast provided, and it’s not a continental,” says a second. pic.twitter.com/KhHwrNBDUJ
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
12/ The police officer who investigated this fight was Chrystal Templeton. She wanted to charge every kid who watched. She believed charging them was helping them.
By the time of this investigation, Templeton had been disciplined at least 37 times, her personnel file shows.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
13/ To arrive at a charge, Templeton met with two judicial commissioners.
In Rutherford County, these commissioners wield great legal power. They can issue warrants, set bail and conduct probable cause hearings — all without needing a law degree.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
14/ One commissioner, who used to work in a post office, came up with the charge of “criminal responsibility for conduct of another.”
The problem? There’s no such charge.
These kids were charged with a crime that doesn’t exist.https://t.co/WVuV8y43Ey
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
15/ Of the 11 kids arrested in this case, four wound up being jailed under the “filter system.”
The filter system was illegal. Yet it was written into the jail’s standard operating procedures for nine years.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
16/ The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services licenses juvenile jails. It inspected Rutherford County’s jail every year. Not once did it flag the filter system.
“There was very little graffiti,” an inspector wrote one year.
“Neat and clean,” she wrote in three other yrs.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
17/ Judge Davenport declined to talk to us for this story. So did Duke and Templeton. So did the Department of Children’s Services.
In court records, Rutherford County has denied any wrongdoing.https://t.co/WVuV8y43Ey
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
18/ The county’s illegal jailing of kids came to a stop only when a federal judge ordered an end to the filter system.
But the county is still jailing lots of kids.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
19/ When forced to stop jailing so many of its own children, Rutherford County ramped up its pitch to detain kids from other places.
The county charges $175 a day for each kid they jail.https://t.co/WVuV8y43Ey
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
20/ Check out this promotional video, narrated by Judge Davenport over saxophone music and B-roll of children in black-and-white striped uniforms.
It’s titled, “What Can the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center Do For You?”https://t.co/Z5GeqijSvv
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
21/ To report this story, we filed 56 public records requests, got 38 hours of audiotaped interviews from an internal police investigation and watched >100 public meetings spanning 12 years.
For more on our reporting process, check out the methodology section at the story’s end.
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
22/ @meribah and I want to thank the children and parents who shared their stories with us.
You can can read the full investigation, published by @ProPublica and @WPLN, here:https://t.co/WVuV8y43Ey
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
I had the privilege of working on this story with the extraordinarily talented @meribah of Nashville Public Radio (@WPLN), as part of @propublica‘s Local Reporting Network.
I was reminded anew of how print reporters have so much to learn from radio reporters. https://t.co/nGjRtcT7eF
— Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) October 8, 2021
We’re planning to continue reporting on the juvenile justice system in Rutherford County and elsewhere in Tennessee. If you have any stories that you’d like to share, please get in touch. Meribah Knight’s email address is [email protected], and Ken Armstrong’s is [email protected].
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