Earlier this week, The Tennessean put out a piece on the massive number of domestic violence cases dismissed by the Nashville police department. The silver lining: the article demonstrates the important work of local journalists. Otherwise, it’s a pretty devastating report on how a police department has put domestic abuse cases on the back burner while prioritizing traffic tickets and crime statistics.
According to The Tennessean, “In 2005, police cleared 211 cases without making an arrest. One year later, the number jumped to 3,866, and by 2009, it was 5,600. Police cited the victims’ lack of cooperation for not pursuing those arrests, but state law says that cannot be an excuse if there is other evidence or probable cause.” As the paper clarified in a second article, Tennessee law very clearly states that “a victim’s cooperativeness ‘shall not’ even be considered when considering whether to make an arrest.”
Although it’s clear that the Nashville Police Department has broken the law thousands of times, the members of the department have tried to place the blame on small, administrative stuff: Interim Chief Steve Anderson “chalked up the spike to a new police form that came online that year to simplify the classification of such cases.” Or, he later mused, “It could be something as simple as a training issue.” Right. This could only be a “training issue” if police are trained not to take domestic violence seriously. And what kind of “form” lets police get away with closing a case with the words, “The victim in the case doesn’t wish to prosecute at this time,” ignoring the photos in the file of her severely bruised arms.
Ever think that a woman may decline to prosecute because she could face a lot worse than black-and-blue arms? Why on earth let a woman go home to a man that had just severely beaten her? The investigation turned up other anecdotes in which women tried to follow-up and have the man who abused or threatened them arrested, only to find out their cases had been closed and couldn’t be reopened.
