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AT-LARGE ELECTION RESULTS
SEPTEMBER 21, 2023 | VOLUME 35 | NUMBER 37
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No charges filed after man shoots dog at Percy Warner Park Police continue to investigate the shooting BY MATT MASTERS
Freddie O’Connell speaking on election night, Sept. 14, 2023.
PHOTO BY MATT MASTERS
Freddie O’Connell wins mayoral race, besting Alice Rolli BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT
As soon as former Republican campaign official Alice Rolli secured the second spot in the mayoral runoff, many Nashville political observers considered the race over. During the ensuing six weeks, District 19 Metro Councilmember Freddie O’Connell corralled support from labor unions; pro-business groups; progressive advocacy organizations; many local elected officials; the third-, fourth-, fifth-, sixth- and seventh-place finishers in the first round of voting and even some local business people who previously paid for ads attacking him. O’Connell outraised Rolli 3-to-1 in the runoff, and the scant public polling showed him up big. (Rolli’s endorsements, meanwhile, were led by the Fraternal Order
of Police, which settled on Rolli after previously endorsing two other candidates, and the local Republican Party.) On Thursday, that support produced an O’Connell runoff win. O’Connell, a software professional by trade, launched his campaign last year as a challenge of Mayor John Cooper, whose January decision not to seek a second term turned the race on its head and invited several more candidacies. O’Connell will succeed Cooper next month having run a race in which he talked frequently about his opposition to Cooper’s multibillion-dollar deal to help build a new stadium for the Tennessee Titans on the East Bank. Now, among O’Connell’s top agenda items as
mayor will be shepherding the development of the Metro-owned campus surrounding the stadium, tapped for thousands of housing units, hotels, new infrastructure and additional development. Transit, education, housing and a simmering faceoff between the state legislature and the city round out the set of challenges facing O’Connell. The future mayor and native Nashvillian spent two eight-year terms representing District 19, which includes his home of Salemtown, Germantown and downtown’s entertainment district, whose rabid growth during those eight years has been a key campaign theme and, at times, a thorn in the side of residents and voters who saw O’Connell as a path >> PAGE 2
Metro Nashville Police responded to a shooting at Percy Warner Park on Sept. 13 after a man shot and killed a dog. The shooting happened around 10:30 a.m. when an unidentified couple were walking their unleashed German Shepard in the park when the dog began to run away. Police believe the dog was chasing a squirrel. The dog was wearing a shock collar, but it failed to stop when the owners activated the collar, eventually approaching an unidentified man who fired three shots from a pistol, all of which struck and killed the dog. Police said that the man reported that he felt that the dog was “aggressive,” adding that the man had “past trauma with a German Shepherd.” Charges have not been filed at this time, but MNPD and the District Attorney’s Office are continuing to investigate the case. No person was injured in the shooting. Police said that the shooting appeared to be in self defense, with an MNPD spokesperson calling the incident “extremely unique” for Nashville. Several citizens took to social media to speak out about the shooting, with one woman, identified by her Instagram page as Ariana Kaufman, claiming that she witnessed the shooting after hearing the first gunshot when her back was turned. “At first I thought it was a firecracker but turned around and saw a man shoot a dog,” Kaufman said in a post. “Not only did he shoot the dog once, but he continued to fire shots into his dead body.” Kaufman said in that post that she called 911 and was interviewed by >> PAGE 2
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