NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - An attorney representing a Tennessee homeowner is asking the Metro Nashville Community Oversight Board to investigate officers who responded to a break-in by a former New York officer during a drunken bachelor party two years ago.
Nashville attorney Daniel Horwitz is representing Conese Halliburton, the woman whose house New York City Police Department officer Michael Reynolds is accused of invading in July 2018. Horwitz said he believes responding Metro Nashville Police Officers committed “significant misconduct” while investigating the break-in, The Tennessean reported Monday.
Reynolds acknowledged breaking into Halliburton’s home, which he mistook for the Airbnb rental where he was staying, the newspaper has reported. Reynolds, who is white, also allegedly threatened to shoot the Black family and used a racist slur, the newspaper said. Halliburton was in the home with her four sons at the time, according to prosecutors.
In a letter to review board director Jill Fitcheard, Horwitz said Halliburton testified that a Nashville officer gave incorrect information to dispatch about what Reynolds was wearing that night and wrote false information in an incident report.
Horwitz also alleged in the letter that Nashville officers tried to cover up other actions in the case and have attempted “to intimidate” the Halliburtons.
The oversight board did not immediately say whether they would investigate the allegations about the Nashville officers. A police department spokesperson told The Tennessean that officials were unaware of the allegations or whether internal affairs had been notified, according to the newspaper.
Last month, a federal judge ordered Reynolds to pay $1 million to Halliburton to resolve a federal civil lawsuit filed by Halliburton accusing him of assault, trespassing and emotional distress. Halliburton was sentenced to 15 days in jail last December after pleading no contest to aggravated criminal trespass and three counts of assault in the home invasion. He quit the police force a month later amid protests calling for his firing.
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