After July 16 attack, Tennessee to refocus efforts on terror threats, crime

Tennessee safety plan calls for stopping security dangers and has healthy dose of tough love

Tennessee Department of Corrections Commissioner Derrick Schofield, left, speaks to the Times Free Press editorial board alongside Bill Gibbons, Tennessee Commissioner of Safety and Homeland Security.
Tennessee Department of Corrections Commissioner Derrick Schofield, left, speaks to the Times Free Press editorial board alongside Bill Gibbons, Tennessee Commissioner of Safety and Homeland Security.

The slayings last year of five military service members in Chattanooga shocked Tennessee leaders into new thinking about how to keep the state's residents safe.

"We faced a tragedy that many thought would never touch Tennessee soil," Tennessee Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons said of the attack by Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez on four Marines and a Navy sailor on July 16, 2015. "This Chattanooga shooting incident proved that we are not immune from this enemy we call terrorism."

As a result, Gibbons said Thursday, his department has completely reorganized and refocused on finding and stopping security threats, from the statehouse to the schoolhouse.

Gibbons brought a phalanx of department heads to speak to Times Free Press reporters and editors Thursday about that reorganization. It's part of a larger effort in Gov. Bill Haslam's upcoming budget - called the Public Safety Action Plan - to refocus the state's criminal justice system toward prevention services early on, and tougher treatment for those who don't learn the lesson.

Assistant Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner David W. Purkey said last summer "there were indications we did not have the capability to monitor" Abdulazeez's activities for threats.

"We were challenged in that the suspect in that case was not on our radar, not on federal radar," Purkey said. "Everything we do from now on is dedicated to those Marines and the sailor."

In the last seven months, he said, the department has spent about $1 million to acquire tools and reorganize into four focus areas:

* Terror-threat detection by analyzing public information, social media and other sources;

* Cybersecurity for state systems, which he said come under "thousands of attacks" every day;

* Creating a state-level team to review school security plans and train teachers and administrators;

* Provide standardized training for active shooter incidents or improvised explosive attacks.

Purkey said 18,500 people have already been through the active-shooter training.

Gibbons and the other visitors Thursday talked about other kinds of security, as well, focusing on revised approaches toward drug abuse and violent crime that offer help for those who want it and the certainty of sanctions for those who don't.

Gibbons said the goal is to "make smart use of our prison beds by trying to make sure we're using those prison beds for the most serious offenders."

Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield said that involves a number of approaches.

One is a new way to handle probationers and parolees so minor slips don't land them back in jail, languishing for days or weeks while waiting for a court date, then likely being turned loose by the judge.

Schofield said 40 percent of new admissions each year - 5,000 people or more - are going to jail for violating probation. He wants to implement a risk-assessment system to connect people to treatment and services when they leave jail, as well as beefed-up supervision and a graduated system of sanctions for noncompliance, in hopes they find their feet and don't come back.

All told, that's a $10 million item, but Schofield estimates the department could save $80 million over five years.

And he'd have beds for offenders sentenced under proposed tougher laws for drug-dealing, burglary and domestic abuse. The plan calls for the third conviction in any of those categories to be made a felony.

Fully half of the violent crime in Tennessee is domestic violence, Gibbons said.

Another huge segment of crime arises from drug abuse and mental illness.

Tennessee is "the epicenter of an epidemic of prescription drugs," Health Commissioner John J. Dreyzehner said. More than 1,200 people died last year from prescription drugs, he said. Methamphetamine and, more recently, heroin are rampant.

The safety plan calls for extending the state's drug-monitoring database and increasing its use to reduce prescriptions for controlled substances.

And it calls for boosting treatment options, particularly investing in what Mental Health and Substance Abuse Commissioner Doug Varney called specialized court dockets: drug court, mental health court, veterans court. The goal is to set up at least one such court in each state judicial district that could bring focused treatment and resources to bear.

"These are people that are nonviolent, people who have made some bad choices, people who are subject to addictions," Varney said.

The plan has myriad steps, many small, that together aim at introducing more options than incarceration and better support for the fragile, the challenged and those who can use firm correction to turn their lives around, the commissioners said.

"Ten years ago, we'd never be where we are now," Varney said. "We're looking at this in a more caring, humane, American sort of way. I'm very proud of that."

Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.

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