While Chattanooga leaders are working to make it easier to hire people with criminal backgrounds, the Chattanooga Police Department is years behind on expunging its own records, with 23,000 files outstanding. “It could create real problems,” longtime defense attorney Jerry Summers said. “There’s no excuse for that.” Police spokesman Kyle Miller said the police department has been aware of the problem and is working to process the records, but he blamed staff shortages and said the orders accumulated over years with the previous administration. Miller said the police’s record-keeping problems shouldn’t affect a person’s background check because background checks are pulled from records kept by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the clerk’s office.

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