MNPD Held A Closed Door Demonstration for Council, Flouting Sunshine Laws With Drone Legislation In Active Deliberation
The Thin Blurred Line Between Public Safety Officers and Sales People Pushing AI-Powered Corporate Mass Surveillance
By Mike Lacy Edited by Kelly Chieng & Elizabeth MK Sullivan
On Friday Aug 7, 2026, MNPD hosted Metro Nashville Council Members in a closed door “demonstration” to present information about their drone as first responder pilot, conducted via a 45-flight-day free trial by the war drone manufacturer Skydio1. The hastily scheduled presentation came on the heels of Council Member Sandra Sepulveda filing legislation to limit MNPD’s use of drones without the public hearing or Metro Council resolution that Metro Code § 13.08.080 requires for new surveillance technology2. A Council Member in attendance described the closed door meeting as “essentially a sales pitch.”
The drone trial, which concluded on Friday, had been running without the public hearing or Council resolution that Metro Code § 13.08.080 requires for new surveillance technology, as per WSMV3. Friday’s secretive “demonstration” was very likely in blatant violation of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act (TOMA), which declares that meetings of public bodies with decision-making power over public business must be open to the public4.
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Against the wishes of several of the Council Members in attendance, no outside community members were allowed to attend. However, MNPD did allow a single junior reporter from the Tennessean (who graduated from journalism school this month) and a lobbyist, Sam Reed, to attend.
The primary MNPD official present in the meeting appears to have been Deputy Chief Chris Gilder.
Deeper Context On Deputy Chief Gilder
Deputy Chief Gilder, an attorney as well as a police officer, has previously been connected to efforts to roll out AI-powered corporate mass surveillance in Nashville, including making the department’s case for the FUSUS camera-integration system before Council5. A 2024 whistleblower complaint from a retired MNPD lieutenant alleged Gilder and another top official worked to help draft the 2023 state law that eliminated community-led police oversight boards6, including Nashville’s board, which Nashville voters had created by a 20-point margin in a 2018 referendum7. An independent investigation later disputed the allegation: outside counsel retained by the Mayor’s Office reported finding no evidence MNPD had lobbied for the law, and Gilder categorically denied any involvement or participation in the legislative process8.
Multiple public records requests have been submitted to MNPD and the County Clerk’s office for the Deputy Chief’s financial disclosure forms. The purpose of these requests was to confirm that Mr. Gilder has not received compensation for pushing for mass surveillance in Nashville.
Thus far, MNPD and the Clerks office have only released Mr. Gilder’s financial disclosure forms for 2023, and despite multiple rounds of public records requests, Metro has refused to (or been unable to) release information about whether Mr. Gilder received outside compensation for the years 2024 and 2025 from any firm that might have contracts with Metro Nashville.
Since his last (and only available) financial disclosure form submitted in 2023, Mr. Gilder has been involved in adding a line item for the surveillance firm LeoSight to a $15 million MOU between Metro Nashville and the Nashville Downtown Partnership — by his own account, at MNPD’s request rather than through a competitive bid9.
LeoSight is led by Mark Wood, a surveillance industry executive whose name appears alongside Chief Drake’s on MNPD’s original Fusus contract, entered without Council approval. Separately, The Intercept reported that Marshall Freeman, an Atlanta police official who also sat on Fusus’s board, pitched the platform to at least 14 cities as a fellow officer’s independent recommendation without disclosing that board seat (Fusus was later bought by Axon)10.
Without its officials submitting their legally required financial disclosure forms, it is very difficult for Nashvillians to determine if MNPD’s efforts to roll out AI-powered mass surveillance is being done because law enforcement legitimately believe the technology is useful, or if their officers are being compensated to make the case for this technology (which, as a report published this year by their own philanthropic backer, the Nashville Police + Public Safety Alliance, itself concedes license plate readers lack any real evidence of their efficacy11).
MNPD and the Mayor’s Office did not respond to my request for comment, submitted Sunday Aug 9.
Notice of the meeting, which Council Member (CM) Sandra Sepulveda believes only surfaced after she filed her drone-restriction legislation, had been posted to Instagram by Sepulveda, the chief sponsor of an ordinance to restrict the use of drone surveillance technology.
Reached for comment, CM Sepulveda said that she believes the drone “demonstration” was directly in response to her legislation, which had also prompted Chief Drake to write a letter urging Council Members to not further limit his department’s access to drone surveillance tools, a form of AI-powered corporate mass surveillance that MNPD has already shown they are willing to implement on a “trial” basis without proper authorization.
When members of the media, Metro staffers, and community members arrived at MNPD HQ to attend the presentation on Friday, they were turned away by security and told that it was an “invite-only” meeting. Also turned away were several members of the Metro Community Review Board, who by WSMV’s account had been caught off guard to learn the trial launched without Council approval.
Council Members in attendance of the closed door meeting included:
Mayoral Candidate Joy Styles
Public Health and Safety Committee Chair Jordan Huffman
Minority Caucus Chair Terry Vo
Sandra Sepulveda
Emily Benedict
Erin Evans
Jeff Preptit
Bob Nash, and
Jacob Kupin
All nine Council Members listed above were contacted for comment for this story.
A single reporter, Elijah Carll from the Tennessean, was the only journalist allowed to attend the meeting — the invitation appears to have gone to the paper broadly rather than to him specifically. A representative from the Nashville Scene and I were turned away.Mr. Carll, a Tennessean reporter since July 2026, is listed on LinkedIn as graduating from the 12University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism this month12. I have previously documented how the Tennessean has uncritically published articles in support of AI-powered corporate mass surveillance, seemingly in tandem with MNPD’s budget hearing, promoting a later debunked report by my former boss at the Mayor’s Office John Buntin.
Below is a graphic from a Substack post I made on May 22, 2026 detailing the seeming coordination between MNPD, The Police + Public Safety Alliance, and the Tennessean to influence public sentiment on AI-powered corporate mass surveillance.13
A graphic from my substack13 detailing the seemingly coordinated effort between The Police + Public Safety Alliance, MNPD and the Tennessean to influence pubic sentiment towards AI-powered corporate mass surveillance via a report by John Buntin that was not publicly available despite it having two pieces discussing it in the Tennessean and it being brought up on the Council floor during MNPD’s budget hearing.
It is not clear why a newly minted reporter was the only civilian besides the lobbyist Sam Reed who was allowed to attend the meeting, which is concerning given the stakes of AI-powered corporate mass surveillance.
Council Members also reported talking to a lawyer from the Council’s legal office after learning the public would not be allowed in, as they were concerned about the TOMA implications and if attending such a meeting could result in ethics complaints or litigation. According to a Council Member present, after ten minutes of research conducted right before the meeting took place, the representative of the Council’s legal office reportedly concluded that Tennessee’s Open Meetings Act (TOMA) did not apply since this was a “training” and therefore it did not need to be open to the public.
Upon entering the building, CM Nash, a former MNPD commander, denied to me this private meeting violated TOMA, claiming that they were not going to be talking about any legislation.
“Is this meeting about police drones?” I asked him.
“Yes.” He replied.
“Is there open legislation regarding the restriction of police drones currently on the Council floor?”
“Yes,” he said.
But this meeting about police drones, had nothing to do with any legislation about those very same police drones, he insisted. It was not clear why, if there was no lobbying about legislation going on, there was a lobbyist invited to this closed door meeting.
The police officer manning the door confirmed to me that the lobbyist Sam Reed was “on the list.”
When I contacted Mr. Reed by phone about what was going on and indicated I knew he was present and asked for his assistance attending the demonstration, he promptly exited the building and left the premises before the demonstration began.
Sam Reed is a registered Metro Nashville lobbyist for Elon Musk's Boring Company, Vanderbilt University, The Nashville Downtown Partnership, Oracle, and Nate Bargatze’s eponymous theme park “Nateland” the comedian is attempting to build.14
Mr. Reed, as per the latest disclosure filings for Metro lobbyists, is not a registered lobbyist for the war drone manufacturer Skydio or MNPD, though he is a registered lobbyist for the Nashville Downtown Partnership, the private nonprofit through which the Mayor’s Office routed a $15 million MOU that originally included contracts with LeoSight and FiveCast before Council stripped them in December 202515.
In a letter to the Vice Mayor and Council opposing bill BL2026-1498, Chief Drake has made it explicit that he does not want any further restrictions on his department’s use of drones, warning it could limit their use for missing-person searches, crash-scene mapping, hazardous materials incidents and large public events. “The public safety value of this tool cannot be understated,” Drake wrote16. Drake’s letter states the bill would also affect the Office of Emergency Management’s and Nashville Fire Department’s ability to deploy drones in their own operations17.
Amongst surveillance watchers, there are concerns the Metro Council is not equipped with the legal support needed to combat the expansion of AI-powered corporate mass surveillance, which has the benefit of lawyers inside MNPD (including Deputy Chief Gilder, Esq.), and lawyers for the multi-billion dollar corporations who leverage their legal teams to help write legislation and RFPs to their clients’ benefit.
Most Council Members are not lawyers and do not have the resources to utilize them outside of the official Metro Council law office, which has provided concerning opinions of late.
Stephen Watts, a community organizer with The Nashville Community Safety Network, provided this comment on the topic:18
Since the goal of the surveillance industry is to remain unregulated, empowered by technology that evolves faster than legislation, it should be Metro’s goal to make sure that the effects of legislation — as experienced by the public — are not evolving beyond specific use cases…I’m reminded often of internal legal advice to Council to not hold public hearings for surveillance equipment passed in February, even though public hearings were legally required.
Friday’s analysis that advised Council Members it was proper to attend a closed door demonstration about the benefits of drones with other Council Members while drone legislation is actively on the Council floor, is particularly concerning to some. Other recent examples have demonstrated concerning patterns from the Counsel’s legal office.
It was Council’s legal office, someone familiar with the situation told this outlet, that gave the legal opinion that the Nashville Downtown Partnership only needed to change their budget by one dollar to resubmit its rejected budget to Council — a decision that has also raised eyebrows about the Council’s legal office. The Council legal office has had new leadership since longtime Counsel Margaret Darby departed the role in December 2025 at the end of her four-year contract, moving to private practice19, and there is concern it is not giving legal advice with the public’s best interest and the spirit of the law in mind.
Researchers like Ed Vogel from the Lucy Parsons Lab, featured in the Nashville Banner’s Aug. 6 piece on the airport’s under-the-radar license plate readers, has said these fights ultimately come down to democracy20, are documenting how procurement laws and sunshine acts are being shredded to adopt the move-fast-and-break-things approach through which AI-powered corporate mass surveillance is brought in through every side door available.
At stake, Vogel puts it, is democracy. Friday’s secret meeting, led by MNPD’s Deputy Chief Gilder, is only the latest in a long string of bypassing all norms and accountability to provide a panopticon to police, and more to the point, the corporate surveillance firms acquiring the footage and cashing the checks. As the meeting detailed to Council members, MNPD has been flying drones for the better part of two months without a single contract in place saying what a war drone manufacturer may do with the footage it has obtained of thousands of Nashvillians.
Friday’s chaotic secret meeting is now becoming a standard sight around the country, with AI-powered corporate mass surveillance being pushed by product marketers and, increasingly, the thin blue line between sales people and public safety officers is being blurred.
Source packet — MNPD Held A Closed Door Demonstration for Council, Flouting Sunshine Laws With Drone Legislation In Active Deliberation
By Mike Lacy · exported 2026-08-11 · 28 sources
Everything the article stands on: each source with its links, its archived snapshot, the exact passages pinned as evidence (and the claim in the draft each passage backs), plus the source’s extracted text. Evidence links open the snapshot scrolled to the cited words.
backs: Below is a graphic from a Substack post I made on May 22, 2026 detailing the seeming coordination between MNPD, The Police + Public Safety Alliance, and the Tennessean to influence public sentiment on AI-powered corporate mass surveillance.
Extracted text
At Wednesday's budget hearing, Council Member Jason Spain asked Chief Drake about a study endorsing surveillance technology that had received two pieces of coverage in the Tennessean over the prior two days — a news article and an op-ed from the nonprofit that paid for it.
Spain hadn't read the report. He probably couldn't have. As the reporter confirmed to me, it wasn't publicly available when the articles came out. A study promoting AI-powered corporate mass surveillance was discussed on the Council floor before a single council member had access to it. How did this happen?
backs: Sam Reed is a registered Metro Nashville lobbyist for Elon Musk Boring Company, Vanderbilt University, The Nashville Downtown Partnership, Oracle, and Nate Bargatze’s eponymous theme park “Nateland” the comedian is attempting to build.
Extracted text
Greater Nashville Hospitality Association Hobson Pike Land, LLC Legacy South MarketStreet Management, LLC Murphy Pipeline Contractors, LLC Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation Nashville Downtown Partnership Nashville Zoo NRN Parcel A Owner, LLC, NRN Parcel D Owner, LLC, and NRN Parcel E Oracle America Inc. Predators Holdings LLC Ryman Hospitality Properties Service Properties/The RMR Group TEB, LLC Tennessee Football, Inc. The Boring Company Vanderbilt University
4. Nashville Community Safety Network — nashvillecommunitysafety.net
web source · retrieved 2026-08-11 · 1 cited span
Original:
https://nashvillecommunitysafety.net/
Evidence (the pinned passages and the claims they back):
22. Screenshot 2026-08-10 at 10.42.02 PM.png — uploaded document
uploaded document · retrieved 2026-08-11
Extracted text
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Tha TROPA damn cmt mcntt Fam co messin seinibb a mmm imnk Fan fmm anbia; amlhs Kaba Tama Fada Aaa £40 7 CAAAAM
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23. Metro nashville council vote restricting police drone use following unapproved pilot program — wsmv.com
On September 15th, 2022, the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) entered a contract with FUSUS, a law enforcement surveillance technology company. Despite falling under the purview of surveillance technology, MNPD entered a $175,000 sole source contract1 with FUSUS, a price point below the $250,000 benchmark2 that would require Metro Council approval. MNPD acquired 58 FUSUS devices with the original contract, eight for public use and 50 for private use to disperse to businesses and residents. Currently, there are over 900 FUSUS-linked cameras in Nashville.
26. Atlanta seattle police axon fusus surveillance — theintercept.com
John Drake is bought and paid for. Where are the women in the department? They have the same running pictures? Drake is black but yet has hurt blacks in Nashville for years. He slept with female officers and then dumped them. He was involved in the PAL incident where he failed to supervise a civilian who molested numerous kids. Hagar. Another piece of compost. He’s the “ Brains” of the group. Dwayne Greene… undercover Bi… he’s a snitch. The huge Richter.. what a waste or waist. Carrigan is a great puppet. She’s scared of her shadow and she’s an alcoholic. Great staff leading the police.
John Drake is bought and paid for. Where are the women in the department? They have the same running pictures? Drake is black but yet has hurt blacks in Nashville for years. He slept with female officers and then dumped them. He was involved in the PAL incident where he failed to supervise a civilian who molested numerous kids. Hagar. Another piece of compost. He’s the “ Brains” of the group. Dwayne Greene… undercover Bi… he’s a snitch. The huge Richter.. what a waste or waist. Carrigan is a great puppet. She’s scared of her shadow and she’s an alcoholic. Great staff leading the police.