Tennessee lawmakers are considering making a TBI investigation mandatory for any fatal police shooting, like that of Michael Brown last year in Ferguson, Missouri.
And many law enforcement officials say they’re open to the proposal.
At a hearing Monday, the TBI and the leader of the state district attorney’s association said they could accept a bill that would require a state investigation anytime someone in Tennessee is shot and killed by police.
The hearing took place just days after Shelby County Sheriff William Oldham announced that would become his department’s official policy.
Lawmakers were also told most smaller counties also bring in the TBI. Their police departments are too small to mount independent investigations into shootings.
Former prosecutor Jerry Estes, executive director of the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference, says that’s good policy.
“When I was district attorney, we always requested a TBI investigation when there was an officer-involved death. In the early years, that was sometimes problematic with local law enforcement. But as time went on, they saw the wisdom in that.”
Lawmakers were told that leaves Knox, Davidson and Hamilton Counties as the only jurisdictions where police still conduct internal investigations. Next year, lawmakers may pass legislation that makes them bring in the TBI, too.
But Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch said he’d want local police to be involved. He said city departments actually have more resources than the TBI. As a practical matter, he argued, they should at least be allowed to handle the body, rather than leaving it moldering until state investigators arrive.
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