Nashville.gov

Your Budget at Work - Assuring Public Safety

Nashville is a Safer Community (Metro Nashville Police Department)

Overall major crime in Nashville fell by 4% during 2004 as homicide, burglary, auto theft, robbery and larceny dropped to multi-year lows. Homicide was at its lowest level since 1966, burglary was at its lowest level since 1972, auto theft was at its lowest level since 1991, robbery was at its lowest level since 1999 and larceny was at its lowest level since 2002. At the same time, arrests (both physical and citation) increased by 67.7%. The continuing dedicated work of Metro police officers and professional support staff, combined with the support of the community, are bringing Nashville closer to the goal of being the safest big city in America.

New Officers Hit the Streets of Nashville (Metro Nashville Police Department)

Twenty-one new Metro officers graduated from the police training academy on November 30, 2004 and were sworn-in by Mayor Bill Purcell. The 21 graduates are members of a "lateral" recruit class, meaning they left law enforcement careers in other cities to join Nashville's police department. Because of their prior law enforcement experience, the training time was eleven weeks, half that of a basic recruit class. The addition of these new officers will undoubtedly help to make the Nashville community a safer place to live.

Metro Police Partner with Project ChildSafe (Metro Nashville Police Department)

In April Chief Serpas and the Metropolitan Police Department partnered with Project ChildSafe, the nationwide firearms safety education program, to distribute free gunlocks to the citizens of Nashville. The Nashville community received a total of 525 gunlocks from Project ChildSafe. The gunlocks were provided free of charge on a first come, first served basis at six police precincts across Davidson County.
“A major responsibility in being a parent involves keeping our children safe and away from firearms,” Serpas said. “Anyone who has a gun in the same home with a child should strongly consider getting a gunlock.”

Traffic Accidents Down (Metro Nashville Police Department)

Personal injury and property damage crashes in Nashville fell during the first quarter of the calendar year 2005. Both recorded double-digit reductions, an indication that the police department’s emphasis on traffic enforcement may be prompting motorists to slow down and pay greater attention while behind the wheel.
When compared with the first quarter of calendar year 2004, personal injury crashes dropped by 33% (1332 this year vs. 1994 last year) while property damage crashes fell by 12% (3660 this year vs. 4170 last year). During the first quarter of this year, officers issued 50,535 citations for moving violations, a 15% increase over the first quarter of 2004, during which 43,829 moving citations were issued.

Getting Drugs Off Our Streets (Metro Nashville Police Department)

The Metro Police Drug Detectives have been cracking down in FY05 and are having a significant impact on or neighborhoods this year. In February, the Hermitage precinct undercover detectives seized 563 pounds of marijuana (with a street value of at least $450,400) and $56,620 cash from a Priest Lake area home in the largest single dope seizure of the year.
In July of 2004 the Metro drug detectives were decentralized, and for the first nine months of decentralization, precinct based undercover drug detectives have arrested 91.2% more persons than the former centralized component (1994 vs. 1043); seized 621% more dollars ($627,976 vs. $87,053); recovered 144% more guns (217 vs. 89); seized 246% more vehicles (194 vs. 56); seized 1,479% more cocaine (69.5 pounds vs. 4.4 pounds); and seized 1,509% more marijuana (911 pounds vs. 56.6 pounds).

Aggressive Driving Unit (Metro Nashville Police Department)

On December 1, 2004, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department launched the Aggressive Driving Unit in an effort to reduce the number of instances of aggressive driving occurring on the roadways of Nashville/Davidson County.

The goal of the Aggressive Driving Unit is to make our roadways safer by reducing the number of traffic crashes leading to injuries, deaths and property damage. The officers are deployed in areas that statistical data shows aggressive driving is most likely to occur and have the highest traffic crash rates resulting from aggressive driving behaviors. The officers assigned to the Aggressive Driving Unit utilize unmarked, non-traditional police vehicles, outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment to assist them in identifying aggressive drivers.
The following are examples of violations that the Metropolitan Police Department considers to be aggressive in nature; however, the list is not all inclusive:

• Speeding
• Following too close
• Violating traffic lane restrictions
• Weaving in and out of traffic
• Speeding up to beat a signal light
• Using the horn excessively
• Flashing headlights excessively at oncoming traffic
• Braking to get others to back off of your bumper
• Passing traffic and then slowing down to teach the other driver a lesson.

Independent Survey Finds Significant Support for Metro PD

Eight out of ten Nashville residents and nine out of ten Nashville businesses report that they are satisfied with the overall competence of the Metropolitan Police Department according to a survey just completed by an independent Oklahoma-based research firm.

Wilson Research Strategies, Inc., which has been retained by the police department to conduct biannual surveys of Nashvillians’ opinions about crime and the police department, polled 400 adult residents and 400 business owners/managers at random by telephone May 28-June 2. The survey of adult Nashville residents and business owners/managers found that:

• 79% of residents and 89% of businesses are satisfied with the police department’s overall quality of service;
• 71% of residents and 77% of businesses are satisfied with the police department’s efforts in preventing crime;
• 75% of residents and 84% of businesses are satisfied with the general attitude and behavior of officers toward citizens;
• 74% of residents and 79% of businesses are satisfied with the police department’s traffic enforcement efforts;
• 84% of residents and 86% of business owners/managers feel safe in their own neighborhoods or businesses;
• 68% of residents and 74% of businesses believe that the performance of the police department has improved during the past year;
• 73% of residents and 76% of businesses rate Chief Ronal Serpas’ performance as excellent or good.

“ I am very grateful to Nashville’s families for their support, and our police officers for their tremendous work,” Chief Ronal Serpas said.

Wilson Research Strategies, Inc., based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has a five-year contract with the city to conduct biannual surveys for the police department.

Citizen Police Academy Graduates 54

The 17th Session of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Citizen Police Academy graduated 54 Nashvillians in June 2005. The graduates, including 23 Nashville ministers, attended 2 ½-hour classes one night a week for nine weeks to gain a much better understanding of how their police department operates. They heard presentations on a variety of topics, including homicide investigation, DUI enforcement, drug trafficking, domestic violence, defensive tactics and the judicial process.

Including this class, more than 750 citizens throughout Nashville have completed the Citizen Police Academy since its inception in September 1995.

DCSO: the Only Local Agency in the U.S. Fully Accredited by ACA (Davidson County Sheriff's Office)

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall announced that his agency is still the only one of its kind in the United States fully accredited by the American Correctional Association (ACA). The announcement came shortly after ACA auditors revealed they would again recommend the Criminal Justice Center, Hill Detention Center, Correctional Development Center, and Offender Re-Entry Center for national accreditation – the highest honor a correctional agency can receive.

Initial accreditation was achieved in 2002. After that, the facilities conducted internal evaluations annually. According to Hall, the most difficult part of this process is the re-accreditation because you have to prove three years of maintaining the highest of standards.

“Our mission statement says we will ‘strive to be the leaders in the field of corrections.’ With this honor, I believe we are living up to that statement and will continue to be an agency others want to emulate. Being accredited may not seem very exciting to the average Davidson County citizen, but if you live in the world of corrections it’s a tremendous accomplishment,” Hall said.

New Facility Expands County’s Jail Beds by 300 (Davidson County Sheriff's Office)

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, along with Mayor Bill Purcell, held a ribbon cutting ceremony at the new Offender Re-Entry Center (ORC) in October of 2004. The minimum-security ORC, with a capacity of 300, was the first of two jails to open on this site known as the Sheriff's Correctional Complex (SCC).

Every offender housed at the ORC will work in the private sector through the Work Release Program, perform community service work through the Correctional Services Division, or work for Metro agencies. Most participants in these work programs will also be required to participate in a variety of classes based on need. Those classes include alcohol and drug treatment, parenting, domestic training, dual recovery, and education.

First-Ever Female Jail Opens in Davidson County (Davidson County Sheriff's Office)

Fiscal Year 2005 also saw the grand opening of the county’s first stand-alone jail designed for female offenders on Wednesday, February 23, 2005. The 510-bed Correctional Development Center-Female (CDC-F) facility is the second of two jails to open on this site known as the Sheriff’s Correctional Complex (SCC).

“Opening this facility is a significant step for our community. Female offenders come with specific needs. We now have a facility that can meet those needs in an environment that will promote family, education, and lifestyle changes through inmate programming opportunities.” Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall said

Sheriff’s Department helps Citizens Get Home Safe (Davidson County Sheriff's Office)

The Sober Ride Project, operated by the Davidson County Sheriff's Office (DCSO), provided free, safe, and sober rides home on New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick's Day this year. More than 100 DCSO volunteers signed up to spend their evenings driving across the county picking up those who are too intoxicated to drive. More than 2,200 people were taken home during the 2004/2005 New Year’s Eve Sober Ride Project operating hours.

“Our goal, as always, is to keep people safe as well as educate people on the dangers associated with drinking and driving. DUI arrests are up in Nashville, and residents need to be aware the police are looking to remove drunk drivers from our streets,” Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall Hall said

Metro Announces Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) Program (Nashville Fire Department)

A formal Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) program, believed to be the first of its kind in Tennessee, was kicked-off in the summer of 2004 with the goal of increasing the cardiac arrest survival rate in Nashville from a current level of 8% to 30-40% within five years. Chief Halford and his department have pulled together supporters of a PAD program and have settled on a goal of increasing the number of life saving devices, called Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in Nashville from the current level of 100 to a level of 1,000 by the year 2009. AEDs would be placed in key areas throughout the metro area, including private businesses, shopping centers, churches, schools, public facilities and vehicles, so that any person who collapses with a sudden and potentially fatal heart problem, would be just minutes away from a defibrillating device. Defibrillation with an AED in the first few minutes can reduce the risk of serious brain damage or death by 80%. AEDs are designed to be used by anyone, with minimal training, to save a life. People with no prior training have also used AEDs successfully.

Nashville Fire Department Acquires State-of-the-Art Fire/Rescue Boat (Nashville Fire Department)

The Nashville Fire Department has recently purchased and placed into operation its first state-of-the-art fire/rescue boat. The Firestorm Fire-Rescue boat will be docked at Riverfront Park and will serve as the principal fire/EMS and rescue vessel on the Cumberland River protecting numerous riverfront industries, personal pleasure crafts, commercial pleasure crafts, barges, and marinas. In addition to its rescue and fire duties the new vessel will also serve as a floating ambulance as it is designed to carry emergency medical, advanced life support equipment for paramedics to utilize. The new boat will also support the fire department’s elite dive rescue team currently operating out of Station 22 (Pennington Bend).

The Firestorm Fire-Rescue boat can pump in excess of 3000 gallons of water per minute through any of 4 water monitors affixed to the vessel and can serve as a primary or back up water supply for land based fire fighting in the vicinity of a shoreline. This boat will also be of value to our water environment by assisting in the containment of chemical spills or leaks on our waterways.

Prior to this purchase, the fire department was utilizing a surplus Army garbage scow that was modified with a fire pump and water monitor. The old vessel became unserviceable.

Fire’s Emergency Response Fleet Gets New Equipment (Nashville Fire Department)

Major improvements to the Fire Department's emergency response fleet insured state of the art readiness for fire and rescue operations. Throughout the year the department purchased 2 ladder trucks, 4 pumpers, 4 ambulances, 2 air support trucks, and 18 command vehicles. This new equipment is a $4.5 million dollar investment in public safety.

Historic Fire Fatality Low (Nashville Fire Department)

The Nashville Fire Department completed a review of data ending in 2003 that shows a 5-year trend in the reduction of residential fire fatalities. Metro Nashville and Davidson County residential fire deaths have dropped from 18 in 1999 to 2 deaths in 2003, the lowest in Metro history.

According to the U.S. Fire Administration 80% of all fire fatalities and 76% of all civilian injuries nationwide occur in residential occupancies. The major cause for residential fire deaths is smoking.

Nashville Hosts Homeland Security Planning Conference (Mayor)

In February, Nashville launched the district-wide homeland security planning effort with the Are You Ready for the Challenge Conference at the Nashville Convention Center and Downtown Public Library. The three-day event attracted more than 600 first responders from every level of government, hospital and health care representatives, and local and state community leaders.

The conference focused on lessons learned from incidents of national significance and featured panel sessions and workshops by national speakers with first-hand knowledge of anthrax, SARS, and many other natural disasters and domestic terrorism incidents that have captured the nation’s attention.

The conference featured a joint tabletop exercise for first responders and kicked off the first full-scale 2005 Emergency Preparedness Challenge exercise that will test and evaluate the district’s overall emergency response plans this fall. The exercise will involve nearly a thousand first responders throughout the district, and about three thousand volunteers who will act as injured patients to test and evaluate a wide range of disaster management practices, including search and rescue for victims from a structural collapse, mass evacuations and mass sheltering efforts.

Cold Case Unit (District Attorney)

District Attorney General Torry Johnson announced the creation of a new Internet site dedicated to the murder cases under investigation and review by the Cold Case Unit. The new site, which can be accessed from the home pages of the District Attorney’s Office (http://www.nashville.gov/da) features victim photographs and details about cases which investigators feel could be greatly advanced by information from citizens.

“The fact that the Cold Case Unit has cleared approximately twenty (20) older homicide cases since December of 2001 underscores the effectiveness of this investigative group,” Johnson said. “It is my hope that the details provided on the new website will serve as a tool to solve additional cases as the result of information from citizens.”

“The Cold Case webpage serves as a reminder to our citizens that older murder cases are not forgotten, but continue to be worked behind the scenes by the District Attorney’s Office in cooperation with the Police Department.”