Nashville, Tenn. (TN Tribune)–The Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP (also known as the Tennessee NAACP) is outraged about the passage of SB 0591/HB 0764, the new state law that undermines community oversight/civilian review boards in Nashville and Memphis.
The legislation is an insult to Memphis residents and other Tennesseans concerned about police accountability in the wake of the killing of Tyre Nichols. For Nashville residents, the law amounts to voter suppression because it overturns the will of more than 134,000 people who voted for the Community Oversight Board in November 2018.
The legislation erodes accountability for law enforcement by:
*Weakening oversight/civilian review board investigations involving excessive use-of-force;
* Threatening ongoing investigations of excessive force cases in Memphis and Nashville;
*Allowing officers with known records of bad behavior to work without reprimand;
*Allowing policing practices that have embedded racial and gender biases to operate with less scrutiny;
*Endangering the employment status of current oversight/review board staff;
*Giving Mayors excessive power in handpicking candidates to oversight/review board members without input from voters, impacted constituents, and civil rights groups;
*Turning investigatory powers back into the hands of police departments—allowing the police to investigate themselves—without any accountability, transparency, and civil rights compliance.
The Tennessee NAACP is calling on local officials to take aggressive action against the state law. First, local officials in Memphis-Shelby and Nashville-Davidson Counties must legally challenge the law. Second, the legislative bodies in both areas must support efforts that reinforce the functionality, independence, budgets, and powers of existing oversight and review boards. For Nashville, specifically, the NAACP ask Metro councilmembers to support the proposed ordinance backed by the Community Oversight Board that would maintain its effectiveness. We call upon all Tennesseans to advocate for police accountability and equal protection safeguards for marginalized communities and communities of color. We must do all we can to protect civil rights, promote racial justice and gender equity, and safeguard democracy.
