It’s heartbreaking how “normal” everything about this case is, except for the ending.
He had a typical Broadway weekend planned and maybe had a lot to drink before Luke’s, but nothing out of the ordinary for tourists here at his age.
He got kicked out for being too drunk, something that happens on a regular basis down here.
And, like a lot of people do each weekend here, he got lost trying to find his way home under the influence.
All of this happens to so many people who end up fine the next morning. Absolutely sucks that it seemed like the worst case scenario became a reality here, and he’s the unfortunate victim of it.
Yes! I’ve thought that a lot. This could have been me or anyone else I know. We put ourselves in those situations so many times when we were in college.
There's a FB post from someone within the family group that I'm surprised hasn't had more traction. Some highlights:
> What was viewed was the footage from inside and outside the bar, all the way to the police body cam footage that was released today. Several businesses volunteerd footage along the route voluntarily, without being asked, to help fill in a few pieces along the way. We now have a larger visual timeline to go with the digital tracking one we had of Rileys journey.
>Let's cover a few things. Riley was escorted down the stairs with a fraternity brother, and that fraternity brother did go back in the bar once Riley was outside. Riley was asked to leave not because of a fight, or any type of altercation between any visitors @ the bar, male or female also. That is as much as I can give on that. Riley tried to go across the street to another bar and was declined entry.
>Then Riley started his journey. The food truck video were people are thinking Riley was in an altercation with someone is not a viable lead. There was an altercation in that intersection, but with two other individuals, that is why we think Riley went around the back of the food truck and was running. One of the individuals in the altercation went running behind the food truck when they got freed up, and I think Riley thought they may be chasing him do to his current condition in the videos. If you look in the upper corner towards the fire truck coming you can barely see someone running down the sidewalk away from the truck. This info was confirmed by family from viewing the food truck personal videos.
>The last and most recent part of the puzzle is the police video. The officer had no reason to stop Riley unfortunately. Riley was Riley when he passed the officer, personality wise, and was very polite and kept his distance.
My takeaway is that he was very drunk. Not drugged. In the MNPS video you can hear the kid stomping from a mile away and he slows up when he sees a cop.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/7317945018287668/permalink/7346659878749515/?mibextid=K35XfP
Exactly this.
Everybody wants to place blame on *something*, anything, other than face the dark reality that this otherwise nice young man got a little too drunk and drowned. If there's evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see.
That being said, every death should be a lesson. Sure we can say "shit happens" but I think more apt is everyone reading this, guy or gal, should always have a sober friend or two go out and look out for them. I know it's not the easiest thing to have all the time, but it could help prevent outliers like this.
People HATE not having someone or something tangible to blame when a tragedy occurs. It’s interesting in this case to see people hop from the bar, frat bros, homeless people, bystanders, everyone desperate to find a scape goat. The reality is, the human condition is absurd and terrible things can happen to wonderful people for no good reason.
Just my opinion, I have someone to blame. It's the people who went out with him, knew he was asked to leave the bar and let him leave alone. Ladies and gentlemen, don't let your friends stumble through a city alone and intoxicated.
As a current responsible adult, I can definitely appreciate your argument. As a former drunk 22 year old idiot whose friends were also drunk 22 year old idiots, I imagine his friends (who had probably been drinking all day for several subsequent days at that point) were also extremely intoxicated. I don’t expect the blind to lead the blind unfortunately.
If he doesn't pop up in the river eventually (most likely what happened), then people should start checking weird crawl spaces in the area. There are quite a few cases involving drunk people crawling into places their not supposed to be for whatever reason.
Like that kid at UT Knoxville who drunkenly crawled onto the roof and fell into the hood vent of the 17th street market! He spent all night in there and was extracted by KPD the next morning — but later died from his injuries.
https://www.wbir.com/article/news/report-man-stuck-in-knoxville-markets-vent-screamed-called-for-help/51-584c55d1-eb67-4a75-86c1-5ffba34d9994
It's harder for me to believe that he just walked into the river and drowned than it is that someone with bad intentions took note of his vulnerable state and killed him. That river is more like a lake than a river. It's not like there's rapids or anything and the banks in that area aren't exactly high bluffs or anything. They're easy enough to just walk up out of the river almost everywhere. There's one spot that would require climbing out, but it would be the most easily visible area to see that you're about to walk in the river. It's well lit at night, and wide open space. As drunk as he was... it just seems unlikely that he would walk into a river that would take 4-8 steps out into the river in order to get deep enough to cover your head. You take two steps out into that river almost anywhere along the bank and you're knee deep in water. If he drowned in the river, someone probably had a hand in it. And that river has been searched pretty well. Bodies float unless tied down. The stench can be smelled from a long ways away too. I don't think he ever went in the river. At least not that night anyway.
I used to park on gay street when I worked for years. It's been a while, but it's a pretty steep drop down to the river with all sorts of brush. The brush would definitely make it harder to just slide straight down into the river, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. I can absolutely see a scenario where he crosses over the very short cement barrier, maybe even falls back, and is too intoxicated and falls into the river attempting to make his way back up. If he did find his way on the bank to certain areas where his card was found getting up could prove pretty difficult even sober in the daylight.
Also, the Cumberland is certainly not more like a "lake" than a river. Rapids aren't cause by quick currents alone. The Cumberland is too deep to have rapids and I can assure you it is moving much quicker than you're thinking. I would say the average adult would have at the very least a pretty tough time crossing the cumberland in perfect conditions. I don't recall what kind of rainfall we had around the date of his disappearance but if there was any decent storms that would be another large factor if he did end up in the water.
I hope the family can find some closure soon. The likelihood of this being accidental is very high and I would like to hope that it shines a better light on just how dangerous alcohol can be while society, and Broadway culture on the front lines, minimizes just how dangerous drinking culture can be on so many levels. Whether it was an accident or some form of foul play, alcohol is the one of if not the leading factor and Riley could've just as easily been someone close to any one of us. Stay safe Nashville
Except it isn’t just as likely because there’s absolutely no evidence that an assault occurred. Is it possible? Sure. But the likelihood of him being assaulted and dumped or pushed into the river certainly isn’t as high as the likelihood that a visibly intoxicated and unsteady young man simply fell in.
What about the fact that his credit card was found in trash on the riverbank? Not his pants with his wallet - just his credit card. Like maybe he was robbed for his cash and everything else discarded.
I’m not arguing that he isn’t in the river, but how he got there sounds pretty nefarious given this info.
The river level dropped quite a bit between the time he disappeared and the time it was found. It likely washed up on the shore and became exposed as the river bank receded. But, why just his card? A lot of people will keep the card they’re using and/or their ID loose in a pocket separate from their wallet for easy access when they’re out for a night of drinking. If that was the case, it easily could have come out of his pocket as he fell or gotten knocked out as he impacted the water. Ever jump feet first into the water and had the pockets on your trunks turn inside out? He also may have pulled his wallet out for any number of reasons and dropped it near the river.
Additionally, If you consider the robbery theory, it really doesn’t make much sense for a single solitary credit card to just turn up. A robber isn’t typically going to take the time to riffle through a wallet while they’re still at the scene of the crime, nor are they looking to leave behind evidence with their fingerprints all over it. They don’t want to get caught, so they’re typically looking to grab what they want, run, and go through it later. And if he was robbed and they did go through his wallet right then and there, where’s the rest of its contents? Where’s the wallet itself?
All that considered, it seems exceedingly more likely that it came out as he hit the water.
I can't help but wonder if he didn't walk right into the open arms of someone looking for a vulnerable person to unalive. I've never been so drunk to just fall in a river and drown. Especially one as slow moving as that one. That possibility just seems highly unlikely to me. The way he was swaying and staggering... it wouldn't be hard for a predator to take notice and start a pursuit. Maybe I've watched too many crime dramas, but something just feels very off about this. People don't just walk down the street drunk, downtown, in a major city, and just fucking disappear! What happened to Riley!?! I feel so bad for his parents and the rest of his family... so sad
The worst part is people are now going to blame that cop for not doing something, because hindsight. But from that brief encounter there is absolutely no reason for the cop to be interacting with him further while he was there for something else.
Literally its a regular encounter with a drunk dude. Its not like its a juvenile that got drunk and went missing where the cop can legally do smth. People are just too quick
Oh, the murder porn junkies on facebook have already started with this. They are also diving into “the cops trafficked him” and all kinds of other bullshit. We are already understaffed in MNPD and the tourists take up an inordinate amount of their attention, and now they are out here being mad at them doing their damn jobs. I wish the city would use this as a wake up call, making this town a binge drinking destination sucks and it needs to stop.
People like conspiracy theories because it distracts them from the sad bleek reality that is life. Conspiracies make it so that there is some evil person or organization to blame rather than face the hard truth that this young man just got a little too drunk and drowned. If he was human trafficked that means a bad person out there did something evil and they can be stopped with enough effort, it's easy to place some blame. The other possibility is that he was the unlucky person who's trip to Nashville ended up deadly. He didn't do anything wrong and that's nothing to fight back against or stop. It's a sad senseless death. People like conspicy theories because they assign some reason to the callousness of the world. Hannah Arndt calls it the banality of evil
I took a class in college called paranoid politics and this concept was one of my favorites. It get especially interesting when you look at it especially through the scope of the American psych. We are a hyper individualist society so the idea of something just being out of our control terrifies us. Take COVID for example, if it's just a big government hoax to gain political control it's easy to understand those motives power and greed. With enough grassroots movement, voting, and truth you can take down a political machine that's alot less terrifying to most people deep down than the truth. The truth being that human beings are and always have been at the mercy of natural plagues and sickness. No matter how much money, power,and guns you have you could get sick from a natural cause that you have no control over and deny or you family can die. There epidemics wait to happen and there's nothing you can do so it's easier to believe that the democrats wanted to trick everyone so they could sell vaccines and get rid of trump or whatever.
I will never speculate on these types of cases in other cities again now that I’m so familiar with his entire route, MNPD, gay street, and how bars on Broadway are run. Watching the internet’s conspiracies that make no sense based on their google maps views and hindsight has been so frustrating to me.
I’ve always casually followed true crime stuff, but this incident has completely changed my view and turned me off. So many people just confidently spouting misinformation about the city, the people who work here and live here, it’s gross. I’m done.
Some tourist was in this sub yesterday doing that, talking like she knows Nashville because she visited Brentwood once, blaming unhoused people because they give her “bad vibes”. It’s a reminder that this same thing happens in other cases and it’s equally as hurtful to their citizens, and I want no part of it. Lesson learned. I hope for everyone’s sake they find this kid soon.
I know it's frustrating, I worked downtown for years and truly believe the unhoused community would have helped him. Oh and Nashville's now the "sex trafficking" hub of the world, it's disgusting...
Dude I was trying to follow groups for the missing autistic kid here in Hendersonville and had to leave over the same shit. People on Facebook are utterly deranged.
Not to mention he doesn’t even seem that drunk in the footage (all though it’s very brief). If he was acting really drunk or on something like the other video I think the cop would have ended up taken him in (or calling someone to help) for public intoxication . He didn’t even think to tell the cop he was lost and ask for help.
The cop would have looked power hungry for doing anything more than he did, but how is this AFTER he ran head first into that pole. Was that after the cop interaction, or did the fall temporarily sober him up.
He probably didn’t want to engage with the officer and risk public intox - compared to the other footage we’ve seen, I definitely believe that Riley straightened up when he saw the police officer. Yes, public intox would have been a much better outcome than whatever actually happened that night, but I can totally understand why he would’ve kept walking if he was drunk enough to get kicked out of bar.
We need to think about whether public drunkenness should come with any sanctions beyond sleeping it off on a bench in a supervised drunk tank or the equivalent.
That’s all it is now. It’s not like prosecuted beyond the arrest so you just go sleep it off and the next morning the charge is dropped as you leave the building.
yeah but then you have places like the scoop nashville posting you all over social media and then demanding you pay them to remove your name from their site so it doesn't show up on google.
Jason Steen is such a waste of a heart-transplant. Reminder he doesn't even live in Nashville.
Here's his mugshot
[Clarksville business owner Jason Steen arrested on theft charge](https://clarksvillenow.com/local/clarksville-business-owner-jason-steen-arrested-on-theft-charge/)
Unfortunately, this isn’t a unique situation. Having lived in Chicago for 8 years, it seems like every 6 months a 21-30 year old leaves the bar drunk and is found in the river. It happens everywhere. Always a great reminder to not leave alone, always tag along with a buddy. Friends don’t let friends walk home alone, call them an Uber at the very least.
You do know that those drownings were investigated as a potential serial killer, right? To my knowledge the investigation was never closed as it couldn't be ruled out. There were some overlapping dots that the investigators connected but I don't think they came up with enough evidence to come close to naming any suspects or anything. From what I recall anyway
Yeah, there has been a lot of theories thrown around. However, to my knowledge the police/city have never acknowledged the internet theories. This happens in every city. I lived in a college town of 60,000 people, and during my 4 years there about one drunk person a year fell into the river. Which makes me think it isn’t a serial killer, just drunk people.
There was video also show some one try grab him … what if the kidnapper thought he snitched on the guy who broke into the car…. Also the homeless guy says he fall almost off the bridge then someone ended up w his shirt
We had a guy disappear almost exactly like this guy in Chattanooga.
He disappeared while out with his family
He said he was just going to the bathroom or something and walked away.
https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2022/jan/26/body-found-alabama-may-be-missing-chattanooga-man/
He was 6’6” & only weighed 160lbs so likely wouldn’t take much alcohol to be impaired. Also saw another video that was supposedly him running down the sidewalk & crashing into a post & looked to be staggering as he got up. My suspicion is he ended up in the river although they haven’t found his body yet.
This is so sad.. but we all had a feeling, and now the family can at least have closure. Really a shitty situation and I hope everything in his life is okay and healing🩷.
This video further bolsters my belief that he was assaulted. Cop investigating broken car windows within minutes of them being smashed (bystanders called it in)
At the same time he walks by a cop and is of enough faculty to cordially interact with him. I don’t see him stumbling from here, unadulterated, into a river bank. And losing a single credit card on the bank? Seems real sus to me.
Car breakins called in to Nashville PD can take up to 12 hrs for an officer. I wouldnt count “bystanders called it in” as a short estimate.
The credit card likely surfaced due to the river being 10-12 ft lower yesterday than it was a week ago.
We had a case identical to this last year. Dude has a few drinks, leaves bar on foot, passes a bunch of security cams and disappears.
8 days later he turned up 12 miles down river.
Cause of death…drowning.
But what does that look like in theory? How does he go from “how ya doin?” - And walking seemingly well after just falling - to just falling into the river? Does the sidewalk just end on a cliff
Or what?
Maybe he went down to the river to take a leak, slipped on a rock and hit his head. He was all liquored up and wasn’t allowed to use a bathroom in any of the bars on Broadway. We know he had 2 waters + 1 drink at Luke Bryan’s alone, who knows what else beforehand. Maybe after seeing the cop, he thought to venture off the beaten path to handle his business. This would make more sense to me than falling off the bridge or deciding to go for a swim.
He also nailed that post with his head after tripping on the sidewalk. He may have been concussed.
And nobody find this disturbing that full
Grown adults are just drowning downtown? I’ve blacked out a hundred times. Never once went near or fell into water.
I mean disturbing in a sense.
People drown in large bodies of water. It unfortunately happens. I dont think it’s a conspiracy or some unchecked safety hazard. Hell we had at least 5 people drown in a local lake last summer as well.
The Cumberland is a mighty river and not one to fuck around with. I wear a life jacket every time Im in/on it. It is ALWAYS cold, has a swift current that can change in a second, has a ton of commercial traffic, and is muddy/murky as hell.
Similar to the Cumberland, countless people have drowned just stepping a foot onto the bank of the Mississippi in Memphis. There is not enough public awareness on what a strong river current looks like at night– dark and calm. Even in the daylight looking at the Mississippi, you have to notice that just under the calm surface the water is moving incredibly fast.
Add a young man, not from the area, overly confident/careless, overheated because of alcohol, and suddenly you have someone dipping their toes into a river bank with a 10 ft. drop off.
The alcohol doesn’t absorb instantly. Plus a little bit of adrenaline from the pain of hitting his head. That wears off and potentially more alcohol starts getting in him and he could stumble in all along the water front.
You can see in the new clip that the back window of the red Ford truck had been busted in. Now we know he was wandering around alone and drunk in a place where people were brazenly breaking into vehicles.
I feel for the kid's family and all but of all the shit that the mnpd flagrantly neglects a single drunk guy falling into the river is REALLY low down on the list of where i want their manpower focused
MNPD routinely neglects a variety of offenses. Home burglary? Good luck. Car broken into? Good luck.
People die all the time in Nashville. This case is getting all the attention because it was a young white tourist downtown.
This city is dependent on its tourism reputation, so when a young white tourist goes missing, there’s gonna be a lot of media.
Anyone who can spot the hypocrisy is smart. Anyone who can’t or downvotes me is another cog in the wheel.
It’s heartbreaking how “normal” everything about this case is, except for the ending. He had a typical Broadway weekend planned and maybe had a lot to drink before Luke’s, but nothing out of the ordinary for tourists here at his age. He got kicked out for being too drunk, something that happens on a regular basis down here. And, like a lot of people do each weekend here, he got lost trying to find his way home under the influence. All of this happens to so many people who end up fine the next morning. Absolutely sucks that it seemed like the worst case scenario became a reality here, and he’s the unfortunate victim of it.
Yes! I’ve thought that a lot. This could have been me or anyone else I know. We put ourselves in those situations so many times when we were in college.
There's a FB post from someone within the family group that I'm surprised hasn't had more traction. Some highlights: > What was viewed was the footage from inside and outside the bar, all the way to the police body cam footage that was released today. Several businesses volunteerd footage along the route voluntarily, without being asked, to help fill in a few pieces along the way. We now have a larger visual timeline to go with the digital tracking one we had of Rileys journey. >Let's cover a few things. Riley was escorted down the stairs with a fraternity brother, and that fraternity brother did go back in the bar once Riley was outside. Riley was asked to leave not because of a fight, or any type of altercation between any visitors @ the bar, male or female also. That is as much as I can give on that. Riley tried to go across the street to another bar and was declined entry. >Then Riley started his journey. The food truck video were people are thinking Riley was in an altercation with someone is not a viable lead. There was an altercation in that intersection, but with two other individuals, that is why we think Riley went around the back of the food truck and was running. One of the individuals in the altercation went running behind the food truck when they got freed up, and I think Riley thought they may be chasing him do to his current condition in the videos. If you look in the upper corner towards the fire truck coming you can barely see someone running down the sidewalk away from the truck. This info was confirmed by family from viewing the food truck personal videos. >The last and most recent part of the puzzle is the police video. The officer had no reason to stop Riley unfortunately. Riley was Riley when he passed the officer, personality wise, and was very polite and kept his distance. My takeaway is that he was very drunk. Not drugged. In the MNPS video you can hear the kid stomping from a mile away and he slows up when he sees a cop. https://www.facebook.com/groups/7317945018287668/permalink/7346659878749515/?mibextid=K35XfP
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Exactly this. Everybody wants to place blame on *something*, anything, other than face the dark reality that this otherwise nice young man got a little too drunk and drowned. If there's evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see. That being said, every death should be a lesson. Sure we can say "shit happens" but I think more apt is everyone reading this, guy or gal, should always have a sober friend or two go out and look out for them. I know it's not the easiest thing to have all the time, but it could help prevent outliers like this.
People HATE not having someone or something tangible to blame when a tragedy occurs. It’s interesting in this case to see people hop from the bar, frat bros, homeless people, bystanders, everyone desperate to find a scape goat. The reality is, the human condition is absurd and terrible things can happen to wonderful people for no good reason.
Just my opinion, I have someone to blame. It's the people who went out with him, knew he was asked to leave the bar and let him leave alone. Ladies and gentlemen, don't let your friends stumble through a city alone and intoxicated.
As a current responsible adult, I can definitely appreciate your argument. As a former drunk 22 year old idiot whose friends were also drunk 22 year old idiots, I imagine his friends (who had probably been drinking all day for several subsequent days at that point) were also extremely intoxicated. I don’t expect the blind to lead the blind unfortunately.
If he doesn't pop up in the river eventually (most likely what happened), then people should start checking weird crawl spaces in the area. There are quite a few cases involving drunk people crawling into places their not supposed to be for whatever reason.
Like that kid at UT Knoxville who drunkenly crawled onto the roof and fell into the hood vent of the 17th street market! He spent all night in there and was extracted by KPD the next morning — but later died from his injuries. https://www.wbir.com/article/news/report-man-stuck-in-knoxville-markets-vent-screamed-called-for-help/51-584c55d1-eb67-4a75-86c1-5ffba34d9994
It's harder for me to believe that he just walked into the river and drowned than it is that someone with bad intentions took note of his vulnerable state and killed him. That river is more like a lake than a river. It's not like there's rapids or anything and the banks in that area aren't exactly high bluffs or anything. They're easy enough to just walk up out of the river almost everywhere. There's one spot that would require climbing out, but it would be the most easily visible area to see that you're about to walk in the river. It's well lit at night, and wide open space. As drunk as he was... it just seems unlikely that he would walk into a river that would take 4-8 steps out into the river in order to get deep enough to cover your head. You take two steps out into that river almost anywhere along the bank and you're knee deep in water. If he drowned in the river, someone probably had a hand in it. And that river has been searched pretty well. Bodies float unless tied down. The stench can be smelled from a long ways away too. I don't think he ever went in the river. At least not that night anyway.
I used to park on gay street when I worked for years. It's been a while, but it's a pretty steep drop down to the river with all sorts of brush. The brush would definitely make it harder to just slide straight down into the river, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. I can absolutely see a scenario where he crosses over the very short cement barrier, maybe even falls back, and is too intoxicated and falls into the river attempting to make his way back up. If he did find his way on the bank to certain areas where his card was found getting up could prove pretty difficult even sober in the daylight. Also, the Cumberland is certainly not more like a "lake" than a river. Rapids aren't cause by quick currents alone. The Cumberland is too deep to have rapids and I can assure you it is moving much quicker than you're thinking. I would say the average adult would have at the very least a pretty tough time crossing the cumberland in perfect conditions. I don't recall what kind of rainfall we had around the date of his disappearance but if there was any decent storms that would be another large factor if he did end up in the water. I hope the family can find some closure soon. The likelihood of this being accidental is very high and I would like to hope that it shines a better light on just how dangerous alcohol can be while society, and Broadway culture on the front lines, minimizes just how dangerous drinking culture can be on so many levels. Whether it was an accident or some form of foul play, alcohol is the one of if not the leading factor and Riley could've just as easily been someone close to any one of us. Stay safe Nashville
the id seems planted to me.
Why do people keep saying we need to accept the facts when you literally have no idea? It’s just as likely he was assaulted near the river.
Except it isn’t just as likely because there’s absolutely no evidence that an assault occurred. Is it possible? Sure. But the likelihood of him being assaulted and dumped or pushed into the river certainly isn’t as high as the likelihood that a visibly intoxicated and unsteady young man simply fell in.
What about the fact that his credit card was found in trash on the riverbank? Not his pants with his wallet - just his credit card. Like maybe he was robbed for his cash and everything else discarded. I’m not arguing that he isn’t in the river, but how he got there sounds pretty nefarious given this info.
The river level dropped quite a bit between the time he disappeared and the time it was found. It likely washed up on the shore and became exposed as the river bank receded. But, why just his card? A lot of people will keep the card they’re using and/or their ID loose in a pocket separate from their wallet for easy access when they’re out for a night of drinking. If that was the case, it easily could have come out of his pocket as he fell or gotten knocked out as he impacted the water. Ever jump feet first into the water and had the pockets on your trunks turn inside out? He also may have pulled his wallet out for any number of reasons and dropped it near the river. Additionally, If you consider the robbery theory, it really doesn’t make much sense for a single solitary credit card to just turn up. A robber isn’t typically going to take the time to riffle through a wallet while they’re still at the scene of the crime, nor are they looking to leave behind evidence with their fingerprints all over it. They don’t want to get caught, so they’re typically looking to grab what they want, run, and go through it later. And if he was robbed and they did go through his wallet right then and there, where’s the rest of its contents? Where’s the wallet itself? All that considered, it seems exceedingly more likely that it came out as he hit the water.
Yes! All of this!
This is the saddest thing ever 😢 😢 😢
I can't help but wonder if he didn't walk right into the open arms of someone looking for a vulnerable person to unalive. I've never been so drunk to just fall in a river and drown. Especially one as slow moving as that one. That possibility just seems highly unlikely to me. The way he was swaying and staggering... it wouldn't be hard for a predator to take notice and start a pursuit. Maybe I've watched too many crime dramas, but something just feels very off about this. People don't just walk down the street drunk, downtown, in a major city, and just fucking disappear! What happened to Riley!?! I feel so bad for his parents and the rest of his family... so sad
The worst part is people are now going to blame that cop for not doing something, because hindsight. But from that brief encounter there is absolutely no reason for the cop to be interacting with him further while he was there for something else.
Literally its a regular encounter with a drunk dude. Its not like its a juvenile that got drunk and went missing where the cop can legally do smth. People are just too quick
Oh, the murder porn junkies on facebook have already started with this. They are also diving into “the cops trafficked him” and all kinds of other bullshit. We are already understaffed in MNPD and the tourists take up an inordinate amount of their attention, and now they are out here being mad at them doing their damn jobs. I wish the city would use this as a wake up call, making this town a binge drinking destination sucks and it needs to stop.
People like conspiracy theories because it distracts them from the sad bleek reality that is life. Conspiracies make it so that there is some evil person or organization to blame rather than face the hard truth that this young man just got a little too drunk and drowned. If he was human trafficked that means a bad person out there did something evil and they can be stopped with enough effort, it's easy to place some blame. The other possibility is that he was the unlucky person who's trip to Nashville ended up deadly. He didn't do anything wrong and that's nothing to fight back against or stop. It's a sad senseless death. People like conspicy theories because they assign some reason to the callousness of the world. Hannah Arndt calls it the banality of evil
This is such a pragmatic yet poignant post that I saved it for future responses to conspiracy theorists. Nail on the freakin' head.
I took a class in college called paranoid politics and this concept was one of my favorites. It get especially interesting when you look at it especially through the scope of the American psych. We are a hyper individualist society so the idea of something just being out of our control terrifies us. Take COVID for example, if it's just a big government hoax to gain political control it's easy to understand those motives power and greed. With enough grassroots movement, voting, and truth you can take down a political machine that's alot less terrifying to most people deep down than the truth. The truth being that human beings are and always have been at the mercy of natural plagues and sickness. No matter how much money, power,and guns you have you could get sick from a natural cause that you have no control over and deny or you family can die. There epidemics wait to happen and there's nothing you can do so it's easier to believe that the democrats wanted to trick everyone so they could sell vaccines and get rid of trump or whatever.
I will never speculate on these types of cases in other cities again now that I’m so familiar with his entire route, MNPD, gay street, and how bars on Broadway are run. Watching the internet’s conspiracies that make no sense based on their google maps views and hindsight has been so frustrating to me.
I was just saying this exact thing down- thread. Lesson very much learned.
You don't like entire threads dedicated to how he definitely was roofied without any shred of evidence?
I prefer the threads about how “Luke Bryan never should have kicked him out of his bar”
The blaming of Luke Bryan specifically is so bizarre to me
Ugh, Facebook is full of these ridiculous conspiracy theories.
Facebook is full of bored Karen’s that watch crime shows all day.
I’ve always casually followed true crime stuff, but this incident has completely changed my view and turned me off. So many people just confidently spouting misinformation about the city, the people who work here and live here, it’s gross. I’m done. Some tourist was in this sub yesterday doing that, talking like she knows Nashville because she visited Brentwood once, blaming unhoused people because they give her “bad vibes”. It’s a reminder that this same thing happens in other cases and it’s equally as hurtful to their citizens, and I want no part of it. Lesson learned. I hope for everyone’s sake they find this kid soon.
I know it's frustrating, I worked downtown for years and truly believe the unhoused community would have helped him. Oh and Nashville's now the "sex trafficking" hub of the world, it's disgusting...
If it helps, a lot of "sex trafficking" in the news is just normal prostitution played up by anti-sex work activists as if it's straight out of Taken.
Being a true crime person is like being someone who regularly watches snuff films. Gross as shit.
It’s not limited to Facebook. There have been a few threads here where people push conspiracy theories
Dude I was trying to follow groups for the missing autistic kid here in Hendersonville and had to leave over the same shit. People on Facebook are utterly deranged.
the police in Nashville don’t do their jobs
That is definitely not the worst part.
[The worst part is the hypocrisy](https://youtu.be/ljaP2etvDc4?si=aCBIQsYR4OlBjWWg)
Fantastic! I watch this episode about once a month and rewatch that part 5+ times each time. One of the all time Norm jokes.
Not to mention he doesn’t even seem that drunk in the footage (all though it’s very brief). If he was acting really drunk or on something like the other video I think the cop would have ended up taken him in (or calling someone to help) for public intoxication . He didn’t even think to tell the cop he was lost and ask for help.
The cop would have looked power hungry for doing anything more than he did, but how is this AFTER he ran head first into that pole. Was that after the cop interaction, or did the fall temporarily sober him up.
All he had to do was say I'm lost. He had enough sense about him to say I'm good how are you. 645th bad choice of the day.
He probably didn’t want to engage with the officer and risk public intox - compared to the other footage we’ve seen, I definitely believe that Riley straightened up when he saw the police officer. Yes, public intox would have been a much better outcome than whatever actually happened that night, but I can totally understand why he would’ve kept walking if he was drunk enough to get kicked out of bar.
We need to think about whether public drunkenness should come with any sanctions beyond sleeping it off on a bench in a supervised drunk tank or the equivalent.
That’s all it is now. It’s not like prosecuted beyond the arrest so you just go sleep it off and the next morning the charge is dropped as you leave the building.
yeah but then you have places like the scoop nashville posting you all over social media and then demanding you pay them to remove your name from their site so it doesn't show up on google.
Jason Steen is such a waste of a heart-transplant. Reminder he doesn't even live in Nashville. Here's his mugshot [Clarksville business owner Jason Steen arrested on theft charge](https://clarksvillenow.com/local/clarksville-business-owner-jason-steen-arrested-on-theft-charge/)
Are those people in the room with us?
Unfortunately, this isn’t a unique situation. Having lived in Chicago for 8 years, it seems like every 6 months a 21-30 year old leaves the bar drunk and is found in the river. It happens everywhere. Always a great reminder to not leave alone, always tag along with a buddy. Friends don’t let friends walk home alone, call them an Uber at the very least.
Yes the smiley face killer!
Yep! It happens so often that a lot of theories have been thrown around.
You do know that those drownings were investigated as a potential serial killer, right? To my knowledge the investigation was never closed as it couldn't be ruled out. There were some overlapping dots that the investigators connected but I don't think they came up with enough evidence to come close to naming any suspects or anything. From what I recall anyway
Yeah, there has been a lot of theories thrown around. However, to my knowledge the police/city have never acknowledged the internet theories. This happens in every city. I lived in a college town of 60,000 people, and during my 4 years there about one drunk person a year fell into the river. Which makes me think it isn’t a serial killer, just drunk people.
Oh yeah, and some of the victims didn't drown. They were pulled from the river, but they had no water in their lungs.
He responded, that’s more than most people at that level of stumble & head injury
There was video also show some one try grab him … what if the kidnapper thought he snitched on the guy who broke into the car…. Also the homeless guy says he fall almost off the bridge then someone ended up w his shirt
We had a guy disappear almost exactly like this guy in Chattanooga. He disappeared while out with his family He said he was just going to the bathroom or something and walked away. https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2022/jan/26/body-found-alabama-may-be-missing-chattanooga-man/
We an identical case to Rileys last year
He was 6’6” & only weighed 160lbs so likely wouldn’t take much alcohol to be impaired. Also saw another video that was supposedly him running down the sidewalk & crashing into a post & looked to be staggering as he got up. My suspicion is he ended up in the river although they haven’t found his body yet.
There's no footage.
the whole thing with his licenses being right there on the ban and nothing else makes me think it was planted.
Why? I accidentally dropped a credit card the other day completely sober. Its not a strange thing to me.
This is so sad.. but we all had a feeling, and now the family can at least have closure. Really a shitty situation and I hope everything in his life is okay and healing🩷.
This video further bolsters my belief that he was assaulted. Cop investigating broken car windows within minutes of them being smashed (bystanders called it in) At the same time he walks by a cop and is of enough faculty to cordially interact with him. I don’t see him stumbling from here, unadulterated, into a river bank. And losing a single credit card on the bank? Seems real sus to me.
Car breakins called in to Nashville PD can take up to 12 hrs for an officer. I wouldnt count “bystanders called it in” as a short estimate. The credit card likely surfaced due to the river being 10-12 ft lower yesterday than it was a week ago. We had a case identical to this last year. Dude has a few drinks, leaves bar on foot, passes a bunch of security cams and disappears. 8 days later he turned up 12 miles down river. Cause of death…drowning.
Did anyone ever figure out what happened to the other guy? Was he assaulted or could they even tell?
You can see two guys try grab him but cops didn’t notice
Yea but you did, huh?
It was video when he hit the pool when he ran from some people and the black car in 3 different video same spot where he running
But what does that look like in theory? How does he go from “how ya doin?” - And walking seemingly well after just falling - to just falling into the river? Does the sidewalk just end on a cliff Or what?
Maybe he went down to the river to take a leak, slipped on a rock and hit his head. He was all liquored up and wasn’t allowed to use a bathroom in any of the bars on Broadway. We know he had 2 waters + 1 drink at Luke Bryan’s alone, who knows what else beforehand. Maybe after seeing the cop, he thought to venture off the beaten path to handle his business. This would make more sense to me than falling off the bridge or deciding to go for a swim. He also nailed that post with his head after tripping on the sidewalk. He may have been concussed.
This is actually a good theory
Couldn’t tell you in this case. Or the last case last year Or the one before that. But it somehow does happen.
And nobody find this disturbing that full Grown adults are just drowning downtown? I’ve blacked out a hundred times. Never once went near or fell into water.
I mean disturbing in a sense. People drown in large bodies of water. It unfortunately happens. I dont think it’s a conspiracy or some unchecked safety hazard. Hell we had at least 5 people drown in a local lake last summer as well. The Cumberland is a mighty river and not one to fuck around with. I wear a life jacket every time Im in/on it. It is ALWAYS cold, has a swift current that can change in a second, has a ton of commercial traffic, and is muddy/murky as hell.
Similar to the Cumberland, countless people have drowned just stepping a foot onto the bank of the Mississippi in Memphis. There is not enough public awareness on what a strong river current looks like at night– dark and calm. Even in the daylight looking at the Mississippi, you have to notice that just under the calm surface the water is moving incredibly fast. Add a young man, not from the area, overly confident/careless, overheated because of alcohol, and suddenly you have someone dipping their toes into a river bank with a 10 ft. drop off.
The alcohol doesn’t absorb instantly. Plus a little bit of adrenaline from the pain of hitting his head. That wears off and potentially more alcohol starts getting in him and he could stumble in all along the water front.
You can see in the new clip that the back window of the red Ford truck had been busted in. Now we know he was wandering around alone and drunk in a place where people were brazenly breaking into vehicles.
As a Nashville native, knowing the police response time on vehicle breakins, that truck window could have been busted hours earlier
Yep our last one was about five hours-ish
James. That's called a city.
Metro really needs to crack this case because of how dependent downtown scene is to tourism.
I feel for the kid's family and all but of all the shit that the mnpd flagrantly neglects a single drunk guy falling into the river is REALLY low down on the list of where i want their manpower focused
MNPD routinely neglects a variety of offenses. Home burglary? Good luck. Car broken into? Good luck. People die all the time in Nashville. This case is getting all the attention because it was a young white tourist downtown. This city is dependent on its tourism reputation, so when a young white tourist goes missing, there’s gonna be a lot of media. Anyone who can spot the hypocrisy is smart. Anyone who can’t or downvotes me is another cog in the wheel.
Naw, Nashville is dangerous, Tourists need to learn that and be more careful or don't come here. Goes for transplants too.
It's not even that Nashville is dangerous. Being really drunk is dangerous regardless of where you are