It was a lucrative gig for a handful of Metro police officers: Follow Taylor Swift all day and shuttle her security team around Nashville.
But that off-duty job led to six officers being suspended for breaking the department’s rules on outside employment.
Officers Melvin Brown III, Mike Clark, Milton Elrod, Thomas Rollins and Sgt. Donald Long were suspended for 10 days and Sgt. Daniel Walz was suspended for 12 days for working the off-duty job after top brass denied them permission to do so.
All of the officers admitted they broke department policies and accepted responsibility for their actions, according to the department’s internal investigation.
“This matter concerns doing something they were told they couldn’t do,” said police spokesman Don Aaron.
Elrod, who recently retired from the department after 27 years, said the officers got approval at first, but top brass later rejected it. He said they continued doing the job hoping supervisors wouldn’t find out. The other officers couldn’t be reached for comment.
Firm was unaware
The company that hired the officers to help with Swift’s security, Firefly Entertainment, was unaware of the approval problems, said spokeswoman Paula Erickson.
“As soon as Firefly was made aware that there was a problem, they stopped using these officers immediately,” she said.
The job was simple: Drive Swift’s security team around town as needed. The pay was good as well, $35 an hour at first, then $30 an hour.
“We all needed money; it was easy money,” Elrod told internal investigators.
The officers weren’t providing security services, weren’t carrying their firearms and didn’t use Metro computers to do background checks, in spite of the anonymous complaint that led to Metro’s internal investigation. Most worked fewer than 20 days, with shifts ranging from two or three hours to a 12-hour day. Much of it entailed waiting around for Swift and her entourage to go somewhere, gassing up the vehicles and sometimes running errands to Swift’s parents house in Sumner County.
The officers sought approval for the driving job, but their request was rejected by superiors who wanted more information. According to the internal investigation, the officers worked the details anyway. Several said that they or their families were having money trouble.
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