This Is Nashville put out a form asking the community how they feel about the new legislation abolishing community oversight boards. The show received more than 100 messages, and 98% of those comments strongly opposed the state legislature’s efforts.
The future of the Metro Nashville Community Oversight Board
In this episode, we speak with community members, as well as current and former board members, about why community oversight boards are important to them, and how they feel about the state’s decision to get involved.
Here are the major ways the 2023 Tennessee Legislature has impacted your life
Besides a $3.3 billion transportation plan that’ll bring toll lanes to the state, lawmakers spent a good amount of session focused on anti-LGBTQ legislation and picking apart Nashville’s government.
Nashville and Memphis created police oversight boards seeking accountability. Now Tennessee’s Republican supermajority is abolishing them.
Nashville and Memphis have been running independent, civilian-led police oversight boards — but those groups will be abolished after a legislative vote Thursday.
Weigh in on the future of Nashville’s Community Oversight Board
The state is moving forward on a bill to dismantle the community oversight boards in Nashville and Memphis. Opponents of the bill say it will hurt police accountability. What do you think?
After a report showed long 911 wait times, Nashville police excluded more than 22,000 calls from its data
Nashville’s police department is recalculating response times for 911 calls going back several years. The move follows a recent report from the Community Oversight Board that found that wait times were twice as long — or even three times longer — than previous years.
Nashville police response times have ballooned since 2020. Oversight group says that damages faith in the department.
In 2020, it took only 10 minutes for Nashville police to respond to a call about a shooting. Two years later, that wait time had tripled to half an hour.
Tyre Nichols’ death thrust Tennessee’s policing into the national spotlight. Still, state Republicans want to abolish community-led police oversight boards.
Just days after body camera footage was released showing the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols by Memphis Police officers, Tennessee Republicans filed a bill that would take police oversight powers away from civilian boards.
There’s been a steep rise in Nashville police using force — but it follows new requirements for officer reporting
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.
‘It could wait.’ Police oversight board calls on Nashville to slow the rollout of license plate readers.
The board’s leader says it’s imperative that both it and the public are aware of the city’s policies surrounding license plate readers, before the program is launched.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM