Image Credit: Mt. Juliet Police Department / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
A Nashville man wanted on drug charges for three decades was arrested by Mt. Juliet law enforcement last week.
After stopping 53-year-old Donald Fields for driving without headlights and running a stop sign inside of city limits, Mt. Juliet police officers found that Fields had an active warrant out of Rutherford County for a drug-related charge.
Wanted since 1995, Fields had multiple containers of marijuana, baggies, and digital scales in his possession at the time of the July 1st traffic stop and resisted officers when they initiated his arrest. Upon being safely taken into custody, Fields was also found to have cocaine on him and he was driving on a suspended license.
In a Facebook post, Mt. Juliet Police Department (MJPD) reported that an individual who was not involved with the traffic stop drove by the incident as it was taking place and heckled the officers for conducting the stop in Hermitage, just outside of Mt. Juliet city limits.
This same individual approached MJPD earlier this year and questioned officers regarding their authority to be in Davidson County.
During that stop, a felon wanted in three counties for serious offenses, also from Nashville, ended up assaulting a Mt. Juliet police officer on the Hermitage side of the county line after the driver of the vehicle, in which he was a passenger, tried to outrun the officer and MJPD gave chase. An officer had observed violations in Mt. Juliet – an illegal window tint and the driver failing to signal – before attempting a traffic stop.
“MJPD remains committed to pushing back against cross-border criminal activity. With Mt. Juliet and Nashville’s city limits connected, our officers frequently patrol the city limits near the county line to deter crime before it impacts our residents,” wrote MJPD in February. “When violations occur in our community, our officers have full legal authority to stop offenders, even if they continue into Nashville.”
After Tuesday’s incident, MJPD noted that 409 wanted individuals were apprehended within city limits during the first half of this year. Of those 409, 90 percent did not live in Mt. Juliet.
Every county adjacent to Davidson County, including Mt. Juliet, has a License Plate Reader (LPR) program which helps law enforcement in those counties apprehend known criminals who are frequently from Nashville.
Despite Metro Police Chief John Drake reiterating the need for LPRs in Nashville, along with the support of District Attorney Glenn Funk, and the Metro Council, who have also called for their implementation as violent crime continues to affect residents, a LPR policy has been deferred over and over again for more than two years.
Even with Metro Nashville running a successful six-month pilot which yielded over a hundred felony arrests, the reality of a more permanent program is seemingly still not in the cards.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell has said that the policy regarding LPRs needs work citing “equitable” placing of cameras as one of the main points needing to be addressed and following recent Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE) operations in Nashville and nearby counties, the use of LPRs is even more unlikely to be approved by the Metro Council anytime soon.
MJPD Deputy Chief Tyler Chandler told The Tennessee Conservative last year that while Nashvillians would obviously benefit from LPRs, residents in Mt. Juliet and the broader area would also be helped by Metro adopting a LPR program.
If Nashville were ever to implement their own program, it would give law enforcement access to an even broader pool of data with which to track down dangerous criminals who often travel between neighboring cities. Chandler said this would lead to quicker identification and arrests across the entire region and reduce overall crime, making Nashville, Mt. Juliet and other nearby cities safer.
Due to no current LPR program in Nashville, Mt. Juliet and other cities shoulder a heavier burden as they end up apprehending suspects from Nashville more often over local suspects. Chandler says that Nashville setting up its own LPR system would reduce the load on Mt. Juliet law enforcement as suspects could potentially be apprehended before crossing over into Wilson County.
Nashville LPRs would also lead to more effective collaboration between cities, not only in faster and more coordinated responses in real time as crimes occur, but also in sharing data for investigating serious crimes.
According to the City of Mt. Juliet’s website, Guardian Shield, the city’s LPR program, is not enforcement based nor does it access a database containing personal information. Vehicles trigger an alert when associated with a crime and on a hotlist, generated from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. The technology does not know who is driving or who is in the car and does not access the Department of Safety’s license plate database to determine who owns the vehicle.
MJPD keeps a list of successful interceptions on their website that is updated weekly.
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
