TheVoiceOfJoyce Why a 2 nd NashVillager? It’s in my inbox and packed with information about the Nashville community. They don’t like the police or any organization by passing their city council. They’re skeptical of mechanization and want all drone testing and use to be approved by the City Council. Drones are being tested, without permission, to film areas as first responders. It’s a 45 day trial. The Council is justified in their anger. They’re about to celebrate our 250 th Anniversary from the perspective of all involved in 1776. The indigenous peoples, the settlers and the enslaved. What is your Community doing to celebrate our 250 th Anniversary of our Democracy?

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Catherine SweeneyOur criminal justice reporter, Paige Pfleger, is doing an intense, year-long investigative project. So we have a new reporter, Emily West, to cover criminal justice stories. She will focus on surveillance technology and policing.

It is already a hot topic. There was the time a Tennessee woman was arrested for crimes committed in a state she’d never even visited because of an error in AI facial recognition. Our sister station WUOT wrote about the Tennessee Highway Patrol looking into contracting with the same facial recognition provider, Clearview AI, even after the state’s attorney general signed onto a lawsuit alleging the company violates privacy. Knoxville is allowing residents to hook their Ring cameras and other personal recording devices to the police department’s footage database, sending their feeds straight to law enforcement. 

Emily is already tackling interesting stories. Like how Nashville is actually using fewer surveillance tools than other peer cities.

I’m interested to see how attitudes toward surveillance vary across the state — especially as pushback and protest grow in Nashville.

And she won’t be alone in covering these issues. 

WHAT TO KNOW

Screenshot / Metro Nashville NetworkMetro reporter Cynthia Abrams has been following this topic, too. It includes the long, dramatic “Fusus” saga, where Nashville ultimately rejected a video surveillance partnership for its police department. 

Cindy’s latest reporting gets into how the city is using “drones as first responders” and resulting community reaction.

A pilot program MNPD has been testing within a two-mile radius around the Madison precinct. The drones are responding to emergency police and fire calls, missing-person cases and significant traffic crashes. Already, MNPD has reported that the program has led to one arrest in a domestic violence case. After the suspect left the scene, the drone operator identified the suspect and alerted ground officers to his location.

The drones operate by using cameras to record the scene. MNPD told WPLN News that they “work similarly to safety cameras” — recording is initiated as they approach the scene, providing a visual for responding officers.

But the program, which will run for up to 45 days, has received community pushback over the fact that it never went before the Metro Council.

Nashville’s code includes a statute that requires surveillance technology to get explicit approval from the Metro Council. (That’s because of the aforementioned growing pushback and protest against surveillance technology.) Mayor Freddie O’Connell and Metro Legal say this program falls under an exemption — when it’s used temporarily for a few specific purposes.

Kelly Chieng, a local organizer says that she feels the program was “illegally implemented,” given that the drones are also used in significant traffic crashes. Those aren’t in the limited purposes listed.

“To say this also falls under this exemption of the surveillance statute, but they’re using it for car crashes — to us that does not track and really does not hold water,” Chieng says. “At a minimum, this needs to come to council for a vote and there needs to be a public hearing.”Get more of the story

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On today’s episode of the NashVillager podcast 
with host Nina Cardona 🎙️ 

Why is the minimum wage higher in many other states? Tennessee doesn’t have its own minimum wage. That means the base pay amount in this state hasn’t changed in almost two decades. Plus the local news for June 4, 2026.

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MORE TO KNOW

  • The Tennessee-based private prison giant CoreCivic is making big money on immigration detainment. It has a partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and it operates massive detention centers across the country. During the first quarter of this year, the company made more than $260 million from these partnerships. The Nashville Scene says that is nearly double what it pulled in from the same time period the year before. During a management web call, CoreCivic CEO Patrick Swindle addressed investors’ concerns that ICE had not ramped up detentions as much as expected. Swindle said he expects that with continued investment in the agency, detention numbers will continue to rise. 
     
  • A Tennessee court declined an independent medical exam for Tony Carruthers after his failed execution last month. Carruthers’ legal team wanted a doctor who doesn’t work for the prison system to examine Carruthers — ideally, they said, within 48 hours of the failed execution. In the request, they included testimony from a physician who has conducted exams on five men who survived executions, explaining the things he caught in interviews that would have otherwise gone undocumented. But the court sided with the state, which argued the in-house medical staff had the bases covered.
     
  • Tennessee gas prices are going down — for now. The American Automobile Association reports the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has decreased more than 20 cents compared to last week. As of yesterdat, the average across the state was $3.87. What remains unclear is whether prices will continue dropping. The cost of crude oil softened last week as the White House engaged in peace talks with Iran, but an agreement has been elusive. The triple-A says failure to strike a deal could cause prices to spike once again. 

FROM WNXP

Nashville Symphony’s Community Concerts is a longstanding free, family-friendly series that is a way to bring the symphony into community parks across Middle Tennessee, WNXP’s Marquis Munson writes. Tonight, it’s making a stop at Clarksville’s Downtown Commons. It’ll be at Centennial Park tomorrow night, and will have several shows over the next couple weeks.

 ”We already are your neighbors and your colleagues, it’s just nice to get out of downtown and into the parks, Director of Community Engagement for the Nashville Symphony Kelly Bell said. “It’s a lovely time to gather with your friends and family, maybe grab a picnic blanket and chill and listen to some magical music.”

FROM THIS IS NASHVILLE

This month, This Is Nashville is exploring the 250th anniversary of American independence from a different perspective. The latest episode explores the Middle Tennessee of 1776. It’s examining life on the frontier through the eyes of indigenous people who were here at the time and long before as well as the white settlers trying to expand America’s borders and the enslaved people they forced into frontier life.

Catch This is Nashville with host Blake Farmer on YouTube,
or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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