NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Metro Nashville City Council members voted on the remaining Community Oversght Board members.
Two of Mayor David Briley's nominees were announced last week - Phyllis Hildreth and Bob Cooper - and nine more were announced tonight.
The members approved during phase one of the vote were:
- Ashlee Davis: Global External Affairs Lead of Global Inclusion & Diversity at Cargill and Former Senior advisor to the Asst Secretary for Civil Rights at USDA
- Jamel Campbell-Gooch: Youth outreach coordinator and member of Gideon's Army
- Andres Alejandro Martinez: Director of Policy and Communications at Conexion Americas and Former Compliance Analyst for UBS
- Brenda Rose: Activist - Nominated by One Revolution Nashville & Middle Tennessee
- Emmett Turner: Nashville Police Chief from 2006-2003 and Nashville's first and only African American police chief
- Adele Lewis: Deputy State Chief Medical Examiner, TN Dept of Health - Nominated by Nashville Academy of Medicine
- Danita Marsh: Metro Police officer who was named Patrol Officer of the Year in 2006
- Walter Holloway: Former Police officer - nominated by Council member Brenda Haywood
- Matt Sweeney: Former judge and current attorney at Baker Donelson
Their job will consist of investigating allegations of misconduct by the Metro Nashville Police department. The board must be established by January 31.
"This is amazing it's a great honor but an emense responsibility and I'm just really excited - quite humbled," said Davis.
"It feels amazing because I think this is an opportunity to our community for a chance to build relationships that are not present right now," said Campbell-Gooch.
The group has to get to work very quickly. They have until March 29, 2019 to put together a staff and new policies.
"Our responsibility was to get this 11 member board selected by the end of January," said Vice-Mayor Jim Shulman. "So we did our job. Now the board has to come together and put together a staff, come up with regulations, policies by March 29th. So they've got two months to go. It's important that we got this board selected by tonight because now the board needs to be called together. They've got a lot of work to do in the next two months."
Voters approved the establishment of the board in November, after two deadly officer involved shootings. The most recent being the death of Daniel Hambrick, who was killed by Andrew Delke. Delke was recently indicted on a charge of first degree murder.
The Fraternal Order of Police, who was not in favor of the creation of the group, released the following statement:
The Fraternal Order of Police appreciates the time and energy that the members of the community and Council Members committed to this process. Unfortunately, as others have noted, the short timeline for implementation on this board did not leave much room for thorough interview and review of each candidate by the members of council, or the community. However, the FOP welcomes the diversity of background and experience that each of the appointed members bring to the board and we look forward to opportunities to positively engage with the COB members as the FOP continues its community outreach efforts. It remains our hope that, that all appointees will honor the code that "public service is a public trust" and serve in their new capacity with fairness, objectivity and free from favor or bias to ensure that our officers can continue to serve this community effectively while providing the exceptional level of service that Nashvillians have come to expect.
More than 180 nominees for the board were submitted. Each nominee had to complete a questionnaire and an a interview with metro council members explaining why they should be appointed to the board.
