Nashvillest

Good morning, Nashville. The city’s homeless population is on the rise, and along with it the downtown crime rate. Metro reports that 60% of the aggravated assaults in the downtown area involve the homeless either as perpetrators or victims, and oddly enough, shipping them out to other cities doesn’t seem to be helping. One Metro police officer is saying that the best defense against the problem is getting them off the streets and into affordable homes. Go figure.

• Kidnapper caught. William Irwin, the guy responsible for Smyrna High School’s Monday afternoon lockdown, was caught by police near Memphis a couple of hours ago. Irwin had kidnapped a domestic violence worker and threatened to kidnap his son from the school at gunpoint yesterday.
• Stepping down. The head of Williamson County Schools won’t be renewing her contract at the end of this school year. It may or may not have something to do with the thousands of Social Security numbers that were discovered floating around on the internet earlier this summer.
• Bits & pieces. Cumberland County’s budget committee met yesterday to try to figure out how to get the kids back in school and didn’t really come up with anything … A tour of hydrogen cars made a stop in Smyrna at the Nissan plant yesterday … The Tennessee Department of Human Services has started its current round of layoffs several months ahead of schedule … The English First ordinance may have finally hit a legal snag.

Photo by gavatron.