Internal Affairs

The Chattanooga Police Department shall ensure the integrity of the Department and its employees by investigating all allegations of employee misconduct from any source, outside or inside the Department including third-party and anonymous complaints.  To maintain integrity, our Department has gone to great lengths to insure accessibility to our Internal Affairs Investigators by as many means possible, to include telephone, fax, mail, email, and walk-in access to an office kept at an entirely separate location next to the Office of the Mayor and apart from Police Headquarters.  In an effort to increase transparency and trust, the Internal Affairs division has made several datasets public around these investigations and outcome of said investigations.  The data presented below is from January 1, 2018 to the present for all completed investigations.

Data We Use:

  • Internal Affairs Incidents - This is the most high level detail of an Internal Affairs Incident where each row of data is a singular incident or case file with some summary information.
  • Internal Affairs Incidents Detailed - This is a slightly more detailed view of Internal Affairs Incidents where each row of data is an individual involved in an incident or investigation.
  • Internal Affairs Allegations - This is a detailed dataset on all allegations made against CPD Officers during the course of an Internal Affairs allegations.

Internal Affairs Incident Summary

Internal Affairs is commonly known to investigate allegations of misconduct by Chattanooga Police Officers as well as respond to citizen complaints.  What is lesser known are the other incident types Internal Affairs is also responsible for and is captured in their system.  Not included in the public data set are incidents specifically related to vehicle accidents, counseling,  and awards/commendations..
All use of force incidents, the most common type of incident, go through a review process which may lead to the opening of an Internal Affairs (IA) investigation.  The second most common case type is a Citizen Complaint, and the third most common are Chain of Command investigations.

Internal Affairs Incidents Locations

Many of the incidents are tied to specific locations where the incident occurred.  We have taken that data and anonymized the location by an appropriate offset to protect the privacy of individuals involved in an incident.  To filter by certain incident types, select the filter option on the top right of the chart.  Noticeably, there are clusters of incidents at the Amnicola and Downtown police stations as these addresses are commonly used when there is no related address for the incident.  Selecting an incident will highlight some basic information on it.

Detailed Incidents

From the Internal Affairs Incidents Detailed dataset, we can gain an intimate understanding of who is involved in what types of incidents.  The below chart is a clickable graph that can dive into who is involved in different types of Internal Affairs incidents.  The first hierarchy is the type of incident followed by the Person Type.  Clicking through the person type then indicates the Officers Race and finally the Complainant Race.  If the incident is a Use of Force incident, the Complainant is the individual that the CPD Officer(s) used force on.
Given that Use of Force is the most common incident, the below chart is the percent of Use of Force incidents in the past quarter that are found to be within Policy.  The chart below that breaks out the Use of Force by type.

The chart below indicates the most common Use of Force type is Hand/Arm (SEH) and Hand/Arm (HEH).  In the course of a use of force incident, an officer may use multiple types of use of force.  When multiple types are used, they are concatenated in the data with a comma "," such as "Hand Arm (SEH), Electronic Weapon."  The data also shows what the given reason was for using force, the most common being Physical Resistance and Failure to Comply.

Allegations

Along with every Internal Affairs investigations, there are allegations levied against CPD Officers.  Allegations are not immediately created with every incident type but often occur with IA Investigations, COC Investigations, Vehicle Accidents, and Citizen Complaints.  The below chart breaks down the Top 20 most common allegations (which represent over 60% of allegations) and their related Findings.  A typical finding of Sustained indicates the allegation levied against the Officer has enough evidence to support the act was in misconduct, while Unfounded and Not Sustained indicate there was no evidence to sustain the allegation or there was not enough evidence respectively.  To view common allegations and findings by Incident Type, use the filter on the top right of the chart.
To further dive into the allegation findings, the below chart is a measure of the percent of allegations each quarter that are found to be Sustained or the CPD Officer Resigns while under investigation.  Based on the quarterly rate, it seems as though approximately 30%-50% of allegations result in a finding of Sustained or the Officer Resigns under investigation.

Submitting a Complaint or Commendation

The Office of Internal Affairs is commanded by Lieutenant Toby Hewitt, and located at 100 E. 11th Street, Suite 302, City Hall Annex, Chattanooga, TN 37402.  Office hours are 8:30am until 4:30pm, Monday-Friday. The office phone number is (423) 643-6240 and the fax number is (423) 643-6253.  Complaints for officer misconduct as well as commendations for exemplary performance can be called in via the phone or can be emailed to CPDInternalAffairs@chattanooga.gov.