'He didn't deserve this': Landon Eastep, killed by Nashville police, was seeking a fresh start
NASHVILLE — Landon Eastep left the small East Tennessee community where he grew up and moved 250 miles west to a big city to start over in 2019 at the advice of a judge who knew him well.
“'You have the biggest heart — get out of Greeneville,'” his sister Michelle Postell, 51, recalled a Greene County General Sessions judge telling her brother during a court hearing in their hometown. “I bought him a bus ticket to a halfway house in Nashville.”
To those who knew Eastep well, the 37-year-old man lived a troubled life. Interviews and public records show he struggled with his mental health growing up, and as a young man battled substance abuse and fell into a spiral of crime. He re-offended so often that rehabilitation efforts never got off the ground.
So when he made the decision to leave Greeneville, about 70 miles northeast of Knoxville, and move to Nashville, his family approved. It was the first time he sought real help, his sister said.
“We visited him in 2019, and he was doing good," Postell told The Tennessean Friday. "He looked great."
But Eastep's life came to an end last week when nine local and state law enforcement officers opened fire on him as he stood on a Nashville highway holding a box cutter and an unidentified "metal, cylindrical object." Law enforcement officials said it was not a gun.
His public death was caught on body cameras worn by responding officers and harrowingly viewed by stopped interstate motorists. It happened about 30 minutes after a state trooper saw him sitting on a guardrail along the highway and stopped to check on him, prompting a standoff and the shutting down of Interstate 65 in south Nashville.
The shooting spurred outcry from his family and the public, coupled with concerns raised by top law enforcement and city leaders about the officers' use of force and the lack of a mental health crisis team at the scene.
"He didn't deserve this," his wife, Chelesy Eastep, said at a news conference. "He was crying out for help, and his cries went completely unanswered."
Back in his hometown Friday, his sister prepared for his funeral while grappling with what her brother went through in recent months and wondering why police used lethal force.
"My brother moved to Nashville to get his life straightened out," Postell said. "Now he's dead. There were so many things that could have been done there that day. He wasn’t bothering anyone. It’s not like he had a bomb — an animal didn’t deserve that.”
This story is based on interviews with Eastep’s family, law enforcement and a judge, along with a review of video footage and more than 100 pages of public records from Davidson, Greene, Washington, and Lincoln counties. The records reveal Eastep suffered from meth addiction and marriage issues, was facing eviction, and at one point threatened suicide.
Who was Landon Eastep?
Eastep was born in September 1984 to the late Howard and Brenda Eastep of Greeneville.
His parents divorced in the late '80s when he was a young boy, and he moved in with his dad.
"He got swapped in between schools all this time because his dad had to move on account of work," his cousin Dustin Eastep, of Greeneville, said. "He was a happy person. We had good times together. But when he reached his late teens, he started getting into trouble with the law."
He attended Chuckey-Doak High School but dropped out in the 11th grade.
Then he followed in his father's steps, working as a mason. He also worked as a roofer, at a furniture store, on a farm and at a car lot. He hopped from home to home, often of other family members
"As he got older, he ended up in jail a lot," his cousin said. "He’s always needed some kind of professional help. Everyone overlooked it, I guess."
Eastep was described as loyal, spontaneous, friendly and cheerful. He was a good poker player. He liked country music.
Sixteen years ago, he had a son. The boy's mother, whom he met through mutual friends, died in a car wreck just over three years ago.
Then in March 2017, his mother died.
“After our mother passed away five years ago my brother lost it,” Postell said.
In Greeneville, records show Eastep was booked into jail nearly 30 times.
The first time was in December 2002, when he was arrested for consuming alcohol underage in his hometown. He pleaded guilty to the charge and served two days in jail, records show.
In the years that followed, Eastep was convicted on vandalism, theft, public intoxication and drug charges.
In June 2012, Eastep was shot in the leg in what Greeneville police described as an apparent drug deal gone bad. Police found Eastep lying by the office door of a motel. He told police the shooting took place in a car and the person who shot him let him out near the motel. No charges were ever filed in the case.
In May 2016, police arrested him on charges including DUI, drug possession, possession of stolen property and driving on a revoked license. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to a year in jail. The judge suspended all but 10 days of the sentence then placed him on probation.
Eastep was also driving a car that was pulled over for having a stolen tag. An investigation showed the car was stolen, the report said. He told officers he had used meth, was high and the only reason he was driving was because he had to go get "more meth."
In late 2018, he was charged with public intoxication by Greeneville police after creating a disturbance in a Belk department store. An arrest warrant shows an officer responded to the store because Eastep was asking customers if they had a gun so he could kill himself.
Eastep told the officer people were trying to kill him, the officer wrote in the report. The officer also said Eastep was “talking out of his head and acting very paranoid” and told the officer he shot meth earlier in the day.
He pleaded guilty to public intoxication and was sentenced to six months of probation plus time already served in jail.
'Get out of Greeneville'
Judge Ken Bailey was no stranger to Eastep, who appeared in his courtroom many times while he lived in Greene County. During Eastep's last hearing on a drug charge before him, the judge recalled giving him some advice: Get out of Greeneville.
"A lot of communities in Appalachia are ravaged by methamphetamines now," Bailey told The Tennessean Friday. "Everywhere people turn who have addiction, the drug is there, the people they use with are there. So I tell them oftentimes they do need to change their location for a fresh start."
The judge said he was happy when he learned Eastep took his advice.
"I was excited for Landon because he had so much potential and so much to give," said Bailey, who recalled how supportive his sister was. "I realize that words are powerful and just a small little word of encouragement to someone who is struggling or doesn't have any hope can make the smallest difference."
After he moved to a men's recovery house in Nashville in mid-2019, Eastep got a job in construction. He got off to a great start. He was sober.
When Postell and her niece visited him for Thanksgiving that year, he was happy.
"He had his own apartment, he had a vehicle, a new girlfriend," Postell said. "Landon followed Judge Bailey's advice when he told him he had so much potential. He wanted Landon to go do better. He was doing better."
He stayed out of trouble for more than two years.
On May 21, 2021, he married Chelesy Eastep.
"We never really heard from him much after that," his cousin said.
In September, his life began spiraling again.
His dad died.
He received an eviction letter.
His wife filed an order of protection against him.
“Landon was drunk and had been drinking alcohol all day," his wife wrote in court documents. She wrote Landon “charged toward” her and she “could tell he was irritated."
She went on to write she left their home and he sent her a text message that read, “The next time you call the police on me you better call an ambulance with them."
Two months later, on Nov. 17, Chelesy Eastep filed another order of protection after she said her husband kicked in a door, threw a shelf at her and punched a hole in the wall. “If you call the police, I (husband) will beat myself up and you," she wrote in additional court documents.
She called him delusional and said he "called the police because he thought aliens were outside."
Court records show his wife also has a history of drug convictions including one for selling meth in 2018. She had failed a drug test five days before Eastep's death, records show.
On the morning of his death, Chelesy Eastep said, she and her husband had an argument.
'He was so beaten down'
Postell said she learned about her brother’s death the evening he died.
“He was so beaten down — especially after he argued with his wife," Postell said. "I really think he was trying to come back to Greeneville again."
Nine officers from three agencies — the Metro Nashville Police Department, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and Mt. Juliet police — opened fire on Eastep, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the agency handling the shooting investigation, reported.
Eight officers remain on administrative leave Monday while the TBI continues to investigate what led up to the shooting. One MNPD Officer, Brian Murphy, remains decommissioned, stripped of his police duties.
Nashville's Community Oversight Board, which investigates complaints involving MNPD, also initiated an independent investigation into the shooting that family and city leaders called "gravely disturbing."
Eastep's family told the Tennessean they've not decided whether they’ll push for changes to the law regarding use of force rules.
"We're awaiting the TBI's findings and the results of the autopsy," said Joy Kimbrough, the attorney of Eastep's wife.
For the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s national helpline, call 1-800-662-4357.
Follow Natalie Neysa Alund on Twitter: @nataliealund.