What 2 million traffic stops show about race and policing in Nashville

Activists in Nashville say they've analyzed nearly 2 million traffic stops that occurred in five years and it shows severe and institutional racial discrimination by the city's police force.

"Black communities have been saying this for years," said Rasheedat Fetuga, founder of Gideon's Army, which released the analysis. "Our current Nashville government would have us believe we are different. However, our report has shown that Nashville follows the same unconstitutional policing patterns that are being practiced across the country. The same destructive patterns cited in the DOJ report evaluating Ferguson."

The more than 200-page report, called "Driving While Black," was released Tuesday by Gideon's Army, a nonprofit that advocates for children with a focus on keeping them out of the criminal justice system. In addition to analyzing the Metro Nashville Police Department's own traffic stop data, the authors interviewed 22 African-Americans about their interactions with officers.

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"The system must be torn down," Fetuga said. "And it must be rebuilt in a way to deliver different outcomes or our children will never be able to thrive in a city that is racially just and equitable. Do I believe it can be done? I do."

Police leaders said the department's actions are not motivated by race but rather by protecting communities.

The report outlined 12 key findings. Among those, the report says:

• Black people are stopped more frequently than others: Black drivers are 27.6 percent of the city's population but make up 39.3 percent of all traffic stops. While 63.8 percent of the population is white, white drivers are involved in 55.5 percent of stops. 
• Police stop black drivers so often it's equal to 112 percent of the African-American driving population.
• In 2015, 79 percent of stops ended with a warning. Of the 6 percent of drivers who received a state citation, black drivers were 3.1 times more likely than white drivers to receive a citation.

In a news conference Tuesday morning, the group announced the report and issued 11 demands, calling on Police Chief Steve Anderson, Mayor Megan Barry and the Metro Council to reform practices. The group called for the end of the department's Operation Safer Streets program and denounced the city's recent $1 million purchase of ballistic armor as a betrayal of a promise not to militarize the police force.

Operation Safer Streets, a program that has previously been criticized by the Black Lives Matter movement, is described as a weekend anti-gang enforcement program. The "Driving While Black" report says traffic stops and the Operation Safer Streets enforcement program target communities of color and low-income neighborhoods.

Thirty percent of U.S. Census blocks in Nashville have a majority nonwhite population, the report says. Yet 60 percent of Operation Safer Streets activities occurred in census blocks where most residents were minorities, the report says, going on to say one-fourth of those patrols were in areas that were more than 90 percent nonwhite.

The report and its findings were not sent to Nashville police, but leaders of Gideon's Army said they would be willing to meet with the department's top brass.

Metro police spokesman Don Aaron told The Tennessean the department has been collecting and analyzing traffic stop data for a number of years. That analysis is documented and mapped in annual reports as well as findings that were presented to the Metro Council just last week during a special meeting to discuss gun violence. 

"Nashville police officers are deployed at a higher degree to where the victims of crime are, in other words, to areas where there is a higher prevalence of crime and higher requests for police services," Aaron wrote in an email to The Tennessean. 

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Aaron said officers are encouraged to be proactive and visible, and to make lawful vehicle stops when warranted. 

He did not dispute the report's finding that about 80 percent or so of vehicle stops result only in warnings. But he said that is telling about the department's goal to keep citizens safe.

"In Nashville, vehicle stops are not about tickets, but to enhance safety through warnings and to better protect the community," Aaron said. "There are more officers, including Flex Units, deployed in higher crime areas at the discretion of precinct commanders.

"You have likely heard the phrase, 'looking beyond the stop.' MNPD officers do that, and have discovered firearms, other evidence of crimes, and wanted felons during vehicle stops. The MNPD believes vehicle stops are an effective tool in the continuing effort to enhance Nashville’s safety for all citizens, certainly including those who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods."

Aaron said the department is committed to working with the neighborhoods to enhance safety and improve quality of life. 

"Each of our eight precincts has a community coordinating sergeant," he said. "These people attend literally hundreds of meetings, actually more than 2,000 during 2015, in communities each year."

Some who worked on the report are not hopeful that their effort will bring change.

Nashville civil rights lawyer Kyle Mothershead, who helped with the data analysis, said the authors of the report had been in contact with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division about the findings, specifically searches officers conduct. The report says black drivers were searched more than three times the rate of white drivers in 2015. 

Mothershead rejected the police department's explanation of the statistics. 

"Every year, the police department finds a way to justify them, to say it's OK," he said.

Reach Stacey Barchenger at 615-726-8968 and on Twitter @sbarchenger.