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Adrian Lamont Cameron Sr.

Age : 47

Gender : Male

Race : Black

Date : 09/18/2021

Location : Days Inn, 3445 Percy Priest Drive

City : Nashville

County : Davidson

State : Tennessee

Agency : Metro Nashville Police Department

Officer(s) :Bob Doke; Jeff Sanders; Josh Black

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during warrant service

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/18/2021, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department SWAT officers Lt. Bob Doke, Lt. Jeff Sanders and Sgt. Josh Black shot and killed 47-year-old Adrian Lamont Cameron during an arrest operation at the Days Inn at 3445 Percy Priest Drive in Nashville. Later reporting and police video identified all three SWAT supervisors as the officers who fired at Cameron.
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MNPD detectives went to the motel because Cameron was wanted on a state parole-violation warrant and police wanted to question him concerning the killing of 50-year-old Josh Evans. Evans had been found shot to death, wrapped in trash bags and dumped in the Cumberland River. Police said Cameron possessed significant information concerning the homicide and had threatened witnesses connected with the investigation.
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Police also believed Cameron was armed. Because of that information, detectives were accompanied by MNPD SWAT officers to execute the arrest and search warrants at the motel. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation later described the operation as involving a person police considered armed and dangerous.
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SWAT surrounded Cameron's second-floor motel room with officers positioned in the parking lot and an armored vehicle nearby. Police used a loudspeaker to repeatedly order Cameron to leave the room and surrender. Police-released video shows multiple tactical officers with rifles trained on the room during the standoff.
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A woman subsequently came out of Cameron's room. During her surrender, an MNPD police dog bit her. Police described the bite as accidental and said the incident would be reviewed.
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After repeated commands to surrender, Cameron appeared in the doorway carrying a rifle. Police alleged that Cameron immediately fired downward toward SWAT officers positioned in the motel parking lot. Doke, Sanders and Black returned fire, striking Cameron.
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Cameron was transported to a Nashville hospital, where he died. All three SWAT officers fired during the confrontation.
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The police account is supported by video evidence released almost immediately after the killing. The footage shows the SWAT deployment outside the room, repeated commands for Cameron to surrender and the eruption of gunfire after he appeared at the doorway. The Metropolitan Nashville Community Oversight Board also responded to the scene and subsequently viewed available body-camera footage with a TBI agent present.
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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation conducted the outside investigation at the request of Davidson County District Attorney General Glenn Funk under the existing agreement governing investigations of fatal MNPD shootings. The TBI's role was to gather evidence and submit its findings to prosecutors rather than determine independently whether the officers' actions were legally justified.
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There was an important later development concerning the homicide investigation that brought police to Cameron's motel room. Police subsequently charged Cameron's 16-year-old son, Adrian Cameron II, with killing Josh Evans. Police alleged Evans had been shot during an attempted drug transaction involving the teenager. Cameron himself was therefore being sought for questioning about Evans' death and on the separate parole warrant; police did not allege that Cameron was Evans' killer.
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No affirmative evidence located for this update establishes that Cameron's family or an eyewitness publicly contested the central police account that Cameron fired toward SWAT officers before Doke, Sanders and Black shot him. No encounter-related wrongful-death or federal civil-rights lawsuit arising from Cameron's killing was identified.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Lt. Bob Doke, Lt. Jeff Sanders and Sgt. Josh Black were the three MNPD SWAT officers who shot Cameron. All three were supervisors, an unusual detail specifically noted by MNPD after their identities were released.
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The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department was experiencing an unusually high number of police shootings during 2021. WPLN's year-end examination identified ten shootings by Nashville police that year, including Cameron's death. The incidents included both fatal and nonfatal shootings and prompted continuing scrutiny of MNPD's use of deadly force.
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That scrutiny had particularly serious context because only months before Cameron's killing, Nashville agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle the civil claims arising from MNPD Officer Andrew Delke's 2018 shooting death of Daniel Hambrick. Delke shot Hambrick while Hambrick was running away, and the settlement resolved the family's federal claims against both Delke and the Metropolitan Government.
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Cameron's killing also occurred under Nashville's relatively new outside-review structure for police shootings. TBI independently investigated the shooting for the District Attorney, while Nashville's Community Oversight Board sent personnel to the scene and reviewed available body-camera footage. The oversight board's September 2021 report specifically records its response to Cameron's fatal shooting and its subsequent review of the video evidence.
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The individual identities of Doke, Sanders and Black are particularly important because the original links alone do not make clear that three separate SWAT supervisors fired. Later reporting establishes that all three shot at Cameron, allowing their names to replace "Not Disclosed" in the database record.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2021/09/19/tbi-investigating-officer-involved-shooting-death-nashville-saturday-night/8410366002/
https://tbinewsroom.com/2021/09/19/tbi-investigating-nashville-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/one-man-dies-in-officer-involved-shooting-at-days-inn
https://wpln.org/post/nashville-police-fatally-shoot-man-at-hotel/
https://wpln.org/post/heres-what-we-know-about-the-10-shootings-by-nashville-police-in-2021/
https://davidsoncountysource.com/tbi-investigating-nashville-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.nashville.gov/sites/default/files/2021-10/COB-210929-ED-Report.pdf?ct=1635172381
https://www.nashville.gov/departments/mayor/news/metro-law-files-council-resolution-settle-civil-claim-estate-daniel-hambrick