Crime and Law Enforcement

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee death row inmate's attorneys are asking a court to declare that he cannot be executed because he is intellectually disabled.

The petition was filed in Memphis Criminal Court on Wednesday. That's one day after Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill making Tennessee’s law that prohibits the execution of the intellectually disabled retroactive.

At the time of Pervis Payne's sentencing, it was legal to execute someone with an intellectual disability.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (Mike Osborne)  --  There’s a Tennessee connection to this weeks’ fuel pipeline company shutdown resulting from a ransom ware attack.

Georgia based Colonial Pipeline Company pumps gasoline products to Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville.

Fuel prices spiked sharply higher in Tennessee after Colonial suffered pipeline leaks, explosions and two extended shutdowns in the fall of 2016. It took weeks for the company to restore services.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP/WMOT)  --  Nashville Police are investigating the department’s fifth officer involved shooting of the year, after a Metro officer shot and killed a homeless man over the weekend.  

MNPD spokesman Don Aaron said an officer shot 23-year-old Jacob Alexander Griffin at a homeless camp Saturday night.

The department released body cam video of the incident Sunday. Griffin yelled at police to get off his property and refused to surrender his gun.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee police department fired an officer last fall after video surfaced of him high-fiving a man who used a racial slur.

According to The Tennessean, the Franklin Police Department’s November firing of Seth Schilling was confirmed by documents obtained through a public records request.

The documents say Schilling responded in October to a call at a bar about a man harassing customers, filming them and using racial and homophobic slurs.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man arrested over a social media post sued law enforcement officers Tuesday, claiming they violated his First Amendment rights, the Tennessean reported.

Joshua Andrew Garton was arrested in January after posting a photograph that depicted two people urinating on a gravestone with a photo of a Dickson County sheriff’s officer who was fatally shot in 2018.

The post was captioned, “Just showing my respect to deputy Daniel Baker from the #dicksoncountypolicedepartment.”