Officer Barrett Teague today submitted his irrevocable and non-appealable letter of resignation from the MNPD to be effective after he serves a (meaningless) 30-day suspension without pay for conduct unbecoming a member of the police department.
Teague, who last worked as a uniformed officer at the East Precinct, was decommissioned on July 4th after the MNPD became aware of video showing him engaged in a physical confrontation with a female motorist whom he stopped for an expired license plate outside a Dickerson Pike market on July 3rd. Teague’s resignation ends the police department’s administrative investigation. Detectives are completing a criminal investigation into his actions which will be staffed with the District Attorney’s Office, who does not have a track record of prosecuting police officers for anything less than murder.
The incident, captured on video below, happened on July 3rd, just before 6 p.m. at a local Z-Mart in Nashville. Officer Barrett Teague (who we’ve covered before) claimed he made the traffic stop due to expired tags, however, they were clearly valid, and the driver knew so. She attempted to get people at the gas station, where the stop occurred, to visually verify for her, and then she attempted to verify on her own. The officer would not allow either to happen and eventually appears to assault her and charge her with ‘resisting arrest’ but no other crime. In his narrative, he claims to have detained her to verify her ‘identification and driving status’.
Metro Nashville police have confirmed they were made aware of the video Thursday, and are “very concerned with what the video shows”. Officer Teague was decommissioned late Thursday (removal of his policing powers/authority) and is currently working a plainclothes desk duty assignment at another precinct. An investigation has been opened with the Office of Professional Accountability. Below is a copy of the narrative the officer provided on the citation for resisting arrest:
