During a spring rainstorm in May of 2025, The Tennessee Highway Patrol teamed up with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to what was supposed to be a targeted effort to capture the worst of the worst illegal immigrant criminals. But what NewsChannel 5 Investigates reporter Levi Ismail found from going through 50 hours of law enforcement video may surprise you.

"People were driving 18 miles, 20 miles over the speed limit (on city streets) were given warnings, to just move on with their day. Meanwhile someone who got pulled over for having their high beams on was taken away in handcuffs even though they presented documentation for their asylum documents. There was definitely a discrepancy there and the only difference we could make out was the fact that there was a racial component there." Ismail showed several instances of THP officers grilling minority drivers and passengers about where they were born, their social security number, and asking if they were in this country legally? ICE agents would step in if the driver or passengers were a minority or spoke Broken English.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After snow and ice melted and power was restored to most of Nashville-Davidson County, Metro Council Members Emily Benedict (D–District 7) and Courtney Johnston (R–District 26) filed a resolution calling for the Electric Power Board of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County to terminate Nashville Electric Service (NES) CEO Teresa Broyles-Aplin.

Both council members represent districts that endured multiple days without power. They say the city’s preparation for the winter storm, as well as the handling of restoration efforts, was poorly managed — and that NES leadership must be held accountable.

Benedict pointed to reduced tree trimming earlier this year as one of several contributing factors. "It's a complete failure of leadership for some time from vegetation management. There's a lot of things in the resolution that speak to the problems that led to the problem that we have."

Johnston echoed the call for change. "People were affected in a very serious way and people want to see that we are listening to them and they want action taken now. The trust in the person leading this organization that is supposed to be providing reliable power to them has eroded."

NewsChannel 5+ can be seen of Comcast/Xfinity Ch. 250, Spectrum/Charter Ch. 182 and over the air on Ch. 5.2. Inside Politics also streams live Fridays at 7pm and Saturdays at 3pm on our website: https://www.newschannel5.com/live3 as well as the NewsChannel 5 Now app on Connected TVs through Roku, AppleTV, AndroidTV, etc.

The episode will air throughout the weekend on NewsChannel 5+ Sat. at 5:30am, 3pm, Sun. at 1am, 9am, 7pm, Mon. at 2:30pm and Tues., 3pm unless pre-empted.

This story was reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tennessee State Senate Democratic Leader Raumesh Akbari gives her response to the State of the State address on February 2nd. Governor Lee says our economy is thriving, but Akbari says the cost of electricity, housing and groceries are higher than it's ever been. "About 50% of those who live in the state are really struggling to even pay their regular bills." She hopes that our state can keep up with our 8 surrounding states when it comes to legislation that helps the average Tennessean.

Topics discussed: to greatly reduced or eliminate the grocery tax to offset higher prices of food, additional funding for our public schools, helping our farmers after devastating tariffs halted or slowed selling their crops abroad, immigration laws, and waiting for data on public vs. private school metrics before doubling the Education Freedom Scholarships to 40,000 instead of 20,000 at $7295 per student going directly to private schools.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.