Police bodycam video shows the deadly encounter between Nashville SWAT officers and a Grammy-winning recording engineer.
Mark Capps, 54, shared four Grammy Awards for best polka album every year between 2006 and 2009, along with Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra. Capps – the son of late Grand Old Opry lead house band guitarist Jimmy Capps – worked with music artists such as Conway Twitty, Kenny Rogers, The Chicks, Big & Rich, Donna Summer, Neil Diamond, Brooks & Dunn, Barry Manilow, Kenny Loggins, and Olivia Newton-John, according to his website.
Around 3 a.m. on Thursday, Capps allegedly woke up his 60-year-old wife and 23-year-old stepdaughter. At gunpoint, he forced the two women into the living room of their home in Heritage, Tennessee.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Department spokesperson Don Aaron said, “He threatened them, said if they called anyone he’d kill them. He was throwing things about the residence and threatened them with a gun.”
Capps fell asleep, and the women were able to escape to the Hermitage Precinct of the Metro Nashville Police Department and informed law enforcement of the alleged situation. Capps’ wife and stepdaughter reportedly told officers that the Grammy-winning recording engineer threatened to kill them and would shoot police.
Police issued warrants for the arrest of Capps on two counts of aggravated kidnapping and two counts of aggravated assault. The police department dispatched three SWAT team members to serve the warrants to Capps at around 2 p.m. on Thursday. The SWAT officers were “made aware of the case due to Capps having access to guns and his violent actions overnight.”
Aaron explained, “Members of SWAT conducted a covert operation outside the residence in the event he barricaded himself inside.”
Police bodycam video shows SWAT officers confronting Capps at his glass front door. He was brandishing a handgun.
SWAT Officer Kendall Coon and another officer demanded that Capps show his hands on three quick occasions.
Aaron said, “Officer Coon deemed that Capps’ movements posed an immediate, imminent threat and fired.”
Coon, a 14-year veteran of MNPD, appears to fire five shots at Capps through the glass door, as seen in the bodycam footage. It did not appear that Capps fired his gun.
Bodycam video shows the cops demand that Capps show his hands several more times as they enter the house.
Capps died at the scene. No officers were injured in the shooting.
The “Critical Incident Briefing” video issued by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department included a photo of the alleged gun Capps was wielding.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will conduct an investigation into the police shooting.
Capps’ brother reportedly died two days prior to the fatal shooting.
Variety reported, “Capps had just lost his brother two days prior to the incident that resulted in his own death. In Capps’ last public Facebook post, dated yesterday, he wrote, ‘No words. RIP Jeffery Allen Capps, Dec 31, 1967 – Jan 03, 2023,’ alongside an undated photograph of himself and his brother standing in front of their father’s grave.”
(WARNING: Video is graphic)
Critical Incident Briefing–Police Shooting on January 5, 2023www.youtube.com