Members of Hamilton County commission are, top row left, Joe Graham, Mike Chauncey, Warren Mackey, Gene-o Shipley and Lee Helton. Bottom from left, Chip Baker, David Sharpe, Ken Smith, Greg Beck and Steve Highlander.
With no warrant, Brandon Bennett, a Hamilton County, Tenn., sheriff’s deputy, gets set to arrest me exercising my right of ingress and egress from my house, obstructing the public road as if he were a bandit. (Photo David Tulis)
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Dec. 12, 2023 — County commission in Hamilton County – like your county, too, probably – is negligent about the welfare of deputies forcing them to make arrests on their own authority.
By David Tulis / NoogaRadio Network
Deputies who serve Sheriff Austin Garrett routinely violate a warrantless arrest law that upholds the warrant process to keep that officer safe.
The county refuses to impose fixes in the sheriff’s office, over which it has budget authority. It allows deputies to operate a general warrants process forbidden by state and federal constitution. It proves immune to repeated notice about this abuse in my NoogaRadio Network reporting.
The county and sheriff’s department allow deputies to make arrest under the Tennessee trucking law when the trucking law applies only to carriers. This body of law is at Tenn. Code Ann. § Title 55, motor and other vehicles. Many people in Hamilton County have been duped by the government and by public schools into thinking that they are involved in commerce and that they must enter a commercial relationship for the privilege with state government to use the roads at all. In other words, they erroneously believe that to travel by the common mode of the day, the car, available or the past century, they must do so in commerce.
They are told that if they use the road for private purposes they will be arrested by the county. This is a fraud and a deception. I put Sheriff Jim Hammond on administrative notice regarding the transportation law in March 2018 in a personal meeting. I put the county commission on notice about the warrantless arrest problem which has the county operating a general warrants scheme. This scheme is replicated in every city in town in Tennessee, judging by what I have been able to report about this abuse.
Hamilton County does not care about its employees and it’s going to put them on the hook legally in making arrests without a warrant with warrant is required under § 40-7-103. Until a deputy is sued personally for a warrantless arrest otherwise requiring a warrant, the commission will refuse to be diligent to look out for respect for the law, starting with the people it employs.
