Officials with the Metro Nashville Police Department have responded to a report released in 2016 by the Gideon's Army, alleging the department of racial profiling during traffic stops.
The report was released last October by the civil right's group, but Police Chief Steve Anderson released his response Tuesday, in which he called the study, "morally disingenuous."
The report, titled "Driving While Black," uses statistics gathered from the Metro Nashville Police Traffic Stop Database as well as anecdotes from members of the community.
"Metro police officers regularly intimidate, harass, and unfairly exert their authority over black drivers," Evan Bunch, a leader with Gideon's Army, said during an interview with NewsChannel 5 back in October.
However, according to Chief Anderson, even though "racial profiling" was mentioned the report dozens of times, it failed to document account of any such incident or incidents. He said it also "relied solely on the disparity in the African American census data compared to the vehicle stop data," creating false assumptions and accusations.
