Mark Capps, a Grammy-winning recording engineer who had worked in the Nashville music scene for 35 years, was shot and killed by police Thursday afternoon in Nashville.
A spokesperson said that he was killed by a member of the SWAT team after he pointed a gun in his doorway. This happened as police were responding to a situation where Capps was said to have held his wife and adult stepdaughter at gunpoint.
Many people in the local music scene were shocked by the death. Capps came from a well-known family in Nashville. His father, Jimmy Capps, was a famous session player, Grand Ole Opry guitarist, and member of the Musicians Hall of Fame.
Jimmy Capps died in 2020. Capps was shot and killed just two days after his brother died, as his social media posts showed. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department posted footage from a body camera of the shooting on Thursday night.
The outside glass door of the house makes it hard to see what Capps was doing when he was shot, so it’s hard to tell what he was doing. The gun police say he was holding when he was shot is shown in a still photo on the police department’s video.
At the time of his death, Capps, who was 54, was on the run for aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping. Metro Police spokesman Don Aaron told reporters that at around 3 a.m., Capps forced his 60-year-old wife and 23-year-old stepdaughter into their family room with a gun and told them he would kill them if they called the police.
Grammy Award-winning recording engineer Mark Capps was shot dead by SWAT officers after he allegedly held his 60-year-old wife and 23-year-old stepdaughter hostage at gunpoint at his home in suburban Nashville, Tennessee. https://t.co/LHUKJaITiP pic.twitter.com/gZ3731gwMY
— 48 Hours (@48hours) January 6, 2023
They were very scared of him and what he was doing to them by not letting them go. Police say that the two women got away after he fell asleep around dawn. They went to the Hermitage precinct to file a report. After the warrants were issued at 1:55 p.m., the SWAT team went after him and killed him.
A discography on Capps’ website indicates that, since 1987, he has worked with country and gospel artists including Alabama, the Dixie Chicks, Neil Diamond, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Brooks & Dunn, Barry Manilow, Chris Young, Aaron Tippin, Conway Twitty, Joe Diffie, the Oak Ridge Boys, Big & Rich, the Gaither Vocal Band, John Michael Montgomery, Kenny Rogers, Donna Summer, the Mavericks, Anita Cochran, Kenny Loggins, Olivia Newton-John and the Isaacs, among others.
The Recording Academy’s website shows that from 2005 to 2008, he won a Grammy for best polka album with the group Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra. “Just after the arrest warrants were issued, SWAT was preparing in the event he barricaded himself inside,” Aaron told reporters, per News Channel 5.
“He came to the door with a gun in hand. At that point, he was fatally shot. We have since learned there were cameras monitoring the outside of the home. He may have well seen them outside the residence. They were in SWAT gear and clearly marked to him as members of the police department.”
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The Nashville police posted a video of the shooting, which you can see below, along with comments from Aaron. The disturbing video clip is only for people over the age of 18. It shows an officer standing outside a glass screen door while the inside door opens and a person in pyjamas can be seen.
The officer yells “Show me your hands!” right before he starts shooting, and he says it again when he opens the broken door. As the officers walk in, they can see that an “It’s a wonderful life” Christmas decoration is rocking back and forth on the inside door. Aaron ends the YouTube clip by saying that an investigation will be done to make sure that the officers did the right thing.
Here’s Ring camera footage a neighbor gave me which caught SWAT arriving at 4x Grammy-winner Mark Capps Hermitage home on Thursday. @WKRN pic.twitter.com/gwEud79TLp
— Peyton Kennedy (@peytonTVkennedy) January 6, 2023
In his video statement, the spokesperson for the Nashville Police Department gives more details than what reporters were told earlier in the day. Aaron says in the YouTube video that Capps’ wife and stepdaughter told police that he had threatened to kill them and that if the police showed up, he would also shoot them.
Two days before the accident that killed him, Capps had just buried his brother. Yesterday, Capps’ last public Facebook post said, “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… Follow us only on Lee Daily for more news like this.
