MNPD's Looming Staffing Challenges

Yesterday, Music City’s newest nonprofit, the Nashville Police + Public Safety Alliance, held its launch event at the Fisher Center on Belmont's campus. The brainchild of Patricia Glaser Shea and Metro Nashville Police Department Chief John Drake is a community-based initiative to “improve public safety in partnership with the Metro Police Department.”

During the luncheon, whose sponsors included the Nashville Predators, the Tennessee Titans Foundation, Core Civic, and Old National Bank, presenters touched on some of the data collected by the nonprofit so far. In a survey conducted this fall, 90 percent of respondents reported feeling that they’ve been “treated fairly and professionally by police,” 85 percent agreed that “public safety/crime is a very or somewhat serious issue for the city,” 54 percent said “Nashville is less safe than five years ago,” and 73 percent “feel very or somewhat safe in Nashville, personally.” 

During a Q&A with Chief Drake, he explained the pending issue with police department recruitment and retention. While Drake hopes to be fully staffed by next year, he revealed that the 1,658 officer benchmark budgeted within Metro will still come up short when compared to the amount of police recommended for the city’s population.

“The department would still be 175 short,” said Drake when speaking of recommendations made two years ago. “Nashville continues to really burst at the seams,” he continued. “Tourism is at an all-time high, people are moving here a hundred a day, and we have all the challenges of trying to meet with the exponential…rise in calls of service—and, at the same time, trying to make sure that we engage our community and build trust.” MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

💥 Gangland On Tuesday, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation requested funding for more resources and personnel to combat a Venezuelan gang operating throughout the state. The violence has been brazen, and TBI Director David Rausch expects it to escalate. “Recently, there was a video that they shot where they shot an individual—a cartel member—31 times, broad daylight, on video, and posted it to social media,” he said. According to Fox17’s Kylie Walker, the gang is connected to human trafficking, retail theft, and drug trafficking.

“I think that part of the reason President Trump was elected last week is because people in this country are tired of gang members—from Venezuela, for example—coming across our border,” Governor Lee told Walker before promising to take a closer look at the TBI’s budget request.

The news of the Venezuelan gang closely follows another alarming discovery regarding the impact of open borders on Tennessee. In October, the Attorney General released documents exposing communications between the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, former Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s office, and the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition. A series of emails outlined a plan to release thousands of dangerous undocumented immigrants into the state.

A year ago, General Skrmetti filed a complaint against the Department of Homeland Security regarding the “publicized plan to transport adult noncitizen detainees—many with dangerous criminal histories—from Louisiana detention facilities and release them into Tennessee.” Back in December of 2022, Governor Lee caught wind of ICE’s intentions and joined Senators Hagerty and Blackburn in demanding that the Biden administration reverse the plan.

🚔 MNPD Agrees To Quarterly CRB Meetings On Wednesday, the Community Review Board’s attorney, Frank Brazil, informed the board’s executive committee that Metro Nashville Police Department Chief Drake reversed course and agreed to participate in quarterly meetings with CRB Director Jill Fitcheard. Two weeks ago, the MNPD and the CRB engaged in what could be the final negotiation over a memorandum of understanding setting up the board’s ability to oversee investigations regarding MNPD misconduct.

Brazil said that MNPD’s only remaining request was for transparency and reciprocity when it comes to the status of pending cases conducted by the CRB. “The parties are basically in agreement to everything substantive,” said Brazil. “We anticipate…, over the next two weeks, having something to sign.”

DEVELOPMENT

• Mixed-use building being constructed in The Nations (Post)

✹ REVIEW: CHRISTMAS EVEN IN MILLER'S POINT

As popular as they are, the problem with Hallmark Christmas movies and their imitators is that they can never quite capture the emotional weight of the holidays because they do everything they can to avoid the bittersweet. The tales of pitch perfectly decorated small towns and put-together singletons finding a second chance at love pass the time well enough, but, as Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point proves, the holiday is about much more than meet cutes.

An ensemble film about a vigorous extended Italian-American family in an unnamed Northern town, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point has more in common with Richard Linklater’s sprawling ensemble films like Dazed and Confused and Slacker than the five or so Christmas classics that grace our televisions at the end of each year. Rather than ground the story entirely in one character’s perspective, Taormina takes an almost anthropological approach as Christmas Eve unspools in the spacious but decisively middle-class home–a similar tack that also allowed his debut film, 2019’s Ham on Rye, to achieve a heightened yet realistic suburban reality.

At this Christmas Eve gathering, the fiftysomething parents have hushed discussions of selling the place and moving grandmother into assisted living. The preteens dare each other to go into the basement and fetch a pet iguana while their elders get a little too excited about blanching the green beans. Though the film does eventually settle on rebellious teen Emily (Matilda Fleming) as she escapes the festivities for a John Hughes-ish night of her own, it always takes us back to the extended but gentle family drama.

In its dedication to the essence of the holiday season, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point captures what it means to be a family more than any American film in recent memory. For Taormina, the holiday is a collection of small but profound moments that endure and circle back from year to year. Like the rest of us, he knows the sheer ridiculousness of watching the same home movies yet again on VHS or standing out in the cold to take in a parade of volunteer firemen dressed as elves on emergency vehicles that are ensconced in Christmas lights. But that doesn’t make the festivities any less meaningful.

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is now playing at AMC Thoroughbred 20 and Regal Hollywood 27.

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🎻 A Symphonic Celebration of Genesis & Phil Collins @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $36+, Info

🥁 LIVE JAZZ: Parker James, Paul DeFiglia, & Anson Hohne @ Vinyl Tap, 7p, No Cover, Info

🪕 Stephen & Jana Mougin @ Station Inn, 9p, $20, Info

🎸 Briston Maroney Presents: Paradise @ Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, 7p, $36.50+, Info
+ feat. Gus Dapperton, Krooked Kings, Clover County

🎸 Luke Grimes @ Ryman Auditorium, 7:30p, $40+, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
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