Mark Capps: Grammy-winning audio engineer who held wife and stepdaughter at gunpoint shot dead by cops
HERMITAGE, TENNESSEE: Mark Capps, 54, who is a Grammy award-winning recording engineer and son of legendary guitarist Jimmy Capps, was shot dead by the police in Nashville after holding his wife, Tara Solomon Capps, 60, and his stepdaughter at gunpoint.
Capps woke his wife and his 23-year-old stepdaughter up at 3.00 am and reportedly held them at gunpoint in the living room of their home. This incident occurred on January 5, Thursday. He allegedly refused to let them leave and threatened them multiple times telling them "if they called someone, he would kill them and any police that showed up at the house," as reported by Nashville Metropolitan Police spokesman, Don Aaron, during a press briefing on 5 January. According to the authorities, his wife and stepdaughter made a run for it once he fell asleep around dawn. They reportedly drove to the Hermitage Police Department and filed a police complaint. Warrants were issued before 2.00 pm for Capps’ arrest on charges of aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping and three SWAT officers were sent to his home.
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During the press briefing, Aaron said the SWAT team carried out a 'covert operation' outside the home. Aaron detailed the fatal incident, explaining that “as three SWAT members attempted to begin work outside the home, without Capp seeing them, he opened the front door with pistol in hand," as per NBC News. He said that officer Kendall Coon, a 14-year SWAT officer, yelled at Capps saying, "show me your hands” before he “deemed that Capps’s movements posed an immediate, imminent threat and fired” and the firing started seconds later.
Aaron said in a statement that there will be an investigation to confirm that officers acted properly. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will investigate the shooting. The Nashville Police Department will conduct an administrative review of the tactics and interactions used to determine whether they meet departmental standards. Aaron noted that the investigation has just begun and "will take time to complete." Mark Capps had also confirmed the death of his brother through Facebook just two days before this incident took place.
Capps, an engineer/mixer/producer won four Grammys in a row, from 2005 through 2008 for his work on polka albums. During his career, Capps worked with artists like Olivia Newton-John, The Chicks, Big & Rich, and Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, the Oak Ridge Boys along others. His latest collaboration was with Dolly Parton on her recent album, 'Run, Rose, Run', as per the Independent.