NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The state's POST Commission is taking a hard look at the cases of at least 10 former Metro officers.
This comes two months after a NewsChannel 5 investigation first exposed how the Metro Police department was failing to report its officers who got in trouble to state regulators.
The Tennessee Peace Officer Standards & Training or POST Commission is now going through dozens of files filled with the disciplinary records of more than 80 Metro and former Metro officers.
At today's POST Commission meeting, POST directors said, they're not done yet going through all of the files, but already they've found ten officers who left the force after being charged with serious crimes like DUI, aggravated assault and theft of property, officers who, under state rules, should have all been reported immediately to the POST Commission.
But, Metro Police never reported any of these officers to the POST Commission until after our investigation in July.
That's when we first exposed how Metro was allowing officers who got in serious trouble to take 30 day suspensions and resign in good standing instead of being fired.
Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson told us it simply made it quicker and easier to get the troubled officers off the force. But, under these deals, we discovered, the POST Commission was simply told that the officers had resigned.
POST rules say any officer who is convicted or pleads guilty to a crime can be barred from working in law enforcement in Tennessee. But, because Metro never reported these officers to POST, some of them have been able to go on and get jobs with other departments.
POST Commissioner Director Brian Grisham noted, "The court records system in Tennessee is not perfect so it's possible that a person could be working and the criminal charge not be discovered."
We found at least two officers who left Metro are now working elsewhere.
With most of these cases, the officers left Metro for violating department policy, not breaking the law. But because of what we exposed, the POST Commission is now updating its files to show that these officers were in fact disciplined before they left the force.
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