Nashville studies ways to cut gun violence

Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson said the city now needs more than officers on the streets fighting crime in the effort to reduce gun violence in Nashville.

“Police work has turned into more psychology and sociology than actual crime fighting, and so that’s where we all need to be,” Anderson said. He said more dedicated citizen involvement to influence young people at a young age is key in reducing crimes involving guns.

Vice Mayor David Briley put together the special Metro Council hearing Tuesday evening, calling in Nashville’s police chief and Metro Public Health Department Director William Paul after Briley said gun violence appeared to be on the rise based on local media reports of recent events.

“(The hearing) was also meant to send a message that we are ready to take action,” Briley said.

The rise in homicides that began halfway through 2014 in Nashville and other major U.S. cities has often been credited to what is called the “Ferguson effect” – the idea that policing efforts withered under intense public scrutiny since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Miss.

But Anderson said he is positive that’s not the case in Nashville. He said the MNPD monitors police activity, and he saw no proof that officers took a “nonproactive approach.”

“I think we saw after Ferguson some unrest across the country,” he said. “Some sort of social reset unleashed some violence in the areas that the populations we were talking about earlier see no hope in their future, that aren’t looking beyond tomorrow.”

While the number of shootings in Nashville has gone down, homicides have stayed the course, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s

COUNCILWOMAN SHARON HURT

Annual Crime Analysis Report. Anderson said he believes it’s because people are shooting to kill more often.

Homicides nearly doubled last year, from 41 in 2014 to 79 in 2015. This year, MNPD projects Nashville will rack up at least 77 homicides.

Councilwoman Sharon Hurt called for more role models who look like the people committing the crimes. She said the poverty plaguing African-American communities is a major source of gun violence.

“It has been known many times and for many years in the African-American community that if you want to take a gun from a person, you give him a job,” she said.

Paul said that homicide is only half the problem.

Over half of the total gun deaths from 2010 up to now have been suicides at nearly 51 percent, while homicides made up 46 percent during the same period, according to the Davidson County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Gun violence as a whole is a public health issue, Paul said. He called for more collaboration between the health department and police, mental health benefits legislation and firearm safety education.

“Violence in Nashville is my responsibility — tomorrow, next year,” Anderson said. “But violence in Nashville over the next eight to 10 years is the responsibility of the persons who contact those kids that don’t look to the future with any hope.

“Give them that hope. Give them that encouragement so they become productive members of society.”

Reach Ariana Sawyer at 615-259-8382 and on Twitter @a_maia_sawyer.