FUUN’s Elizabeth Jesse and Susie Wilcox attended. Susie is pictured above. Photos by Al Levinson.

MEDIA RELEASE
DATE OF EVENT: Thursday, March 18th – 2:00 PM
PLACE: MNPD East Precinct; 936 E Trinity Ln, Nashville, TN 37207
CONTACT: Jerome Moore 615-397-6468

“Metropolitan Nashville Police Must Stop Shooting and Killing our Community Members!
NOAH believes it is unacceptable for Metro police to shoot two women, one fatally. These preventable shootings point to larger, systemic issues within the police force and their approach to providing public safety to the Nashville community. The Metro police have a long history of behavior that makes this unsurprising and we are calling for police accountability in each case with an investigation by the District Attorney’s office.  In the instance of Nika Nicole Holbert, we have the history of behavior and practices that led to the data reported in the Driving While Black in Nashville report. Would Nika have been pulled over if she had been white? Would the officer have proceeded with a search if Nika had been white?  What we see in the footage released by the department is a vehicle being pulled over because the officer believed a wanted suspect was in the vehicle. We further see the officer continue the stop even after he learned the suspect was neither the driver or a passenger in the vehicle. Instead of terminating the stop, he decided to search for evidence without consent, a violation of the 4th Amendment. This choice led to Officer Baker being critically injured and the preventable death of Ms. Holbert.

In the second shooting, a woman with a mental illness and in crisis, Melissa Wooden requested the police help her commit suicide: NOAH believes that when mental health crisis calls are received, a civilian team consisting of an EMT and a crisis response counselor should respond, not the police. We call this model HEALS (Health Engagement and Liaison Services) and it provides a medical response to a medical problem.  The patient’s needs are met by the responding health professionals.  They are experts in de-escalation techniques and would determine if probable violence necessitates a call to Metro police. The HEALS team makes that decision once they have interacted with the patient.  There is no need for police involvement to a medical problem unless summoned by the HEALS staff.

NOAH is calling MNPD and District Attorney General Funk to answer these questions:
Police Policies, Protocols, and Procedures with respect to Nika Nicole Holbert:

• From the footage released to the public the officer never asked consent or said Ms. Holbert was under arrest, was the search legal?
• Was the MNPD de-escalation protocol followed?

NOAH is calling on MNPD and the Mayor to take this ACTION:

• Implement a community-based behavioral health crisis intervention program staffed by a Nashville-based non-profit community mental health center already licensed for a wide array of services, including outpatient treatment and crisis services to be first responders to persons who call MNPD in mental crisis.

About Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH)

Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH) is an anti-racist faith-based coalition made up of 62 congregations, labor unions, and other groups, working to combat systemic injustices through community engagement, training, and direct public action.

MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES

• NOAH community members addressing shootings and calling out MNPD
• New proposal on how to best address a mental health crisis