Grammy-winning recording engineer shot and killed by SWAT team in Nashville

Grammy-winning recording engineer Mark Capps was shot and killed by a SWAT team in Nashville on Thursday (January 5).

A spokesperson said the producer was killed by a SWAT team after brandishing a gun in his doorway, after police responded to an incident in which he allegedly held his wife and stepdaughter captive at gunpoint, as Variety reports.

He won Grammys for Best Polka Album for four consecutive years, from 2005 to 2008, as detailed on the Recording Academy’s website.

The producer, who was 54, had worked with artists including Dixie Chicks, Amy Grant, Kenny Rogers and Neil Diamond, according to his website discography. He was the son of Grand Ole Opry guitarist and Musicians Hall of Fame honouree Jimmy Capps, who died in 2020.

Officers are on the scene of a fatal police shooting at a home on Summit Run Place in Hermitage. A SWAT officer fired on an armed 54 year old man who was wanted on agg assault & agg kidnapping warrants involving his wife & stepdaughter. They fled the home this morning. pic.twitter.com/xAbbmA3mhi

— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) January 5, 2023

On Thursday, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department posted body camera footage of the shooting. “Mark Capps, 54, who was wanted on outstanding aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault charges, was fatally wounded by a SWAT officer Thursday afternoon after he suddenly opened the front door of his home armed with a pistol,” the video description reads.

A police spokesperson, Don Aaron, told reporters that Capps brought his 60-year-old wife and stepdaughter, 23, into the family room at gunpoint at 3am, and “told them if they called someone, he would kill them”.

“They were extremely frightened by him and his actions toward them in not letting them leave.”

After Capps fell asleep, police said the women escaped to file a report at Hermitage police precinct.

Aaron continued 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” (via Independent).

He said one officer yellow “show me your hands” before he “deemed that Capps’s movements posed an immediate, imminent threat and fired”, confirming that “Capps died at the scene”.

The producer’s death came two days after his older brother, Jeffrey Allen Capps, died last Tuesday (January 3).

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