Catching Crooks
Even critics acknowledge that the Sheriff's Department seems exceptionally good at cracking serious crimes quickly. Department investigators arrested the alleged serial killer Thomas "Zoo Man" Huskey, broke up the Gagne crime family, and arrested Tony Vick for murdering his girlfriend and burying her body in the backyard of her West Knoxville home. Less than 24 hours after 66-year-old Eskalene DeBorde was murdered in her West Knoxville condominium, the Sheriff's Department charged Roger Broadway, a door-to-door magazine salesman with the crime (a case Hutchison's supporters have trumpeted in a Willie-Horton-like ad). And last year the Sheriff's Department showed up the Knoxville Police Department by arresting suspects for the murder of a worker at Ramsey's Cafeteria in the heart of Knoxville.
Although these are high-profile cases, it's difficult to quantify just how good the department's investigators are at solving crime. Any law enforcement agency can arrest suspects, but the true test of investigators is whether their detective work leads to a conviction.
These statistics aren't available in Knox County. Part of the problem is that charges are often pleaded down or reduced, with some being dropped. Some law enforcement experts suggest that one reason the Sheriff's Department's may be so good at solving sensational crimes is that it doesn't have as large a case load as the KPD does.
At times, Hutchison's investigators have gotten in trouble for breaking the rules. For instance, in 1999, Sgt. Robert Manges swore out a warrant on a man who didn't exist. The deception caught the attention of the district attorney and called into question Manges' testimony in other cases. The Sheriff's Department claimed the warrant was part of an undercover investigation, but it never alerted anyone in the judiciary about it. The sheriff says that should have happened but didn't. He doesn't explain why.
Nevertheless, the growth of the department during Hutchison's term and his investigators' crime-solving abilities helped Hutchison win Sheriff of the Year from the National Sheriffs' Association in 1998. The organization lauded Hutchison for modernizing the department—adding air and dive teams—and building training facilities.
Views from the Inside
Just as the public often appears polarized on Tim Hutchison, so can the people who have worked for him. Some have changed their minds about him over time.
A lot of Tim Hutchison's co-workers were thrilled when he was first elected. It's not that they thought Joe Fowler was a bad sheriff. But there was a feeling that he wasn't really moving the department forward. And a lot of the older detectives resented Fowler's by-the-book manner, says James Dunn, who was then a lieutenant with the department but was later fired by Hutchison. Fowler instituted a policies and procedures manual and was enfor-cing it, Dunn says.
"It was the first time that department was being run in a professional manner, and a lot of officers who had been there years and years didn't like that, because they were used to doing whatever they wanted," says Dunn, who voted for Hutchison that first time. "When Tim—who was one of them—came up to run against Fowler, he was elected."
Others thought Hutchison would bring a youthful vitality to the job. Sgt. Jacqueline Fish wasn't friends with Hutchison, but she liked him. "I really thought Tim would maybe give us a fresh outlook, maybe give the young guys a chance to come up through the ranks," she says.
At the time, Fish was one of the most educated officers in the department. With a master's in criminal justice, she ran the crime scene department, photo lab and fingerprinting room. When she was promoted to lieutenant in 1992, she was the highest-ranking female officer in the department. There was one other noticeable thing about Fish, how-ever—she was married to Paul Fish, who worked for the Knoxville Police Department.
Soon after Hutchison promoted Jacqueline Fish to lieutenant, something strange started happening to her. "As soon as I took that promotion, he started transferring me around. I'd come in on Monday morning and there was a letter on my desk saying I'm transferred to night shift in a different location, with no opportunity to talk to anybody about it or make any child care arrangements."
Although her pay was never cut, she kept losing authority and prominence with each transfer. The transfers got worse as 1994 neared and it became clear that Hutchison would be in a heated race with the KPD's Rudy Bradley, whose campaign Fish's husband worked for. In all, she was transferred six times between April 1992 and January 1995. She went from supervising 80 people down to one.
The bottom was working the night shift at the Detox Center at Lakeshore. "Anybody at the Sheriff's Department who was married to a city policeman or had a family tie was targeted and moved," she says. "At one time he put five of us at night shift at the Detox Center...When it ran with one person prior to any election, suddenly it took five people, and two of us were married to city police officers."
With 10 years' experience in crime lab work, more education than most of her coworkers and a nearly flawless record (she says she was suspended once in her career for oversleeping), it was pretty evident she wasn't wanted at the department.
"I personally felt my career was at an end," she said during a 1997 hearing for another employee before the Merit Board, the county board that handles grievances for sheriff's employees. "I had three degrees in law enforcement and criminal justice, 20 to 30 specialized schools, hundreds of hours of training and lots of county money invested in me, and basically I was out of control of my career, and I sat there at night and read books to have something to do."
Others in the department told her if her husband stopped supporting Bradley, the sheriff would lay off of her. She refused and eventually worked for Bradley's campaign herself. She finally left the department and now works for the University of Tennessee's Institute for Public Service.
She's not the only one who reports being punished by the sheriff for their associations, political activities or views. Dunn, who was a lieutenant in the training division at the time, was transferred several times, until he eventually ended up working a graveyard shift at the penal farm. Dunn says he believes he was transferred because of his political associations and because he knew about Hutchison's involvement with some unsavory characters.
When Dunn lost his department-provided car and mobile phone, he decided to work openly for Rudy Bradley's campaign.
The day after the elections, Dunn says he was called into personnel for not reporting to work one day. When it turned out he hadn't reported because he was assisting the KPD with a hostage situation, he was then fired for taking time off for jury duty, but not actually being on a jury. (Dunn says he was told by a supervisor to take off until the jury duty had passed. But when he realized he was only on call for jury duty—and not on an actual jury—he went back to work after eight days. His supervisors later claimed he was playing hooky from work. He appealed the decision to the Merit Board but lost. He's now awaiting a court appeal.)
Brenda Lindsay-McDaniel, the former judicial commissioner, says she is friends with many officers in both the KPD and sheriff's office. She says many of them are terrified to be seen talking with certain people. "His officers swear [Hutchison] hears everything they say. He never demotes in pay, only rank. That puts them in a real quandary," she says. "He punishes quickly."
Dunn says the paranoia that grips the department is fueled by officers wanting to get ahead. "You have to understand the mindset that exists within the Knox County Sheriff's Office. The young officers are of the opinion that the way to get promotions is to be a snitch for the sheriff. That's how promotions are given—not by ability or experience."
Typical of Hutchison's Jekyll-and-Hyde public image, others disagree. David Hunter, a former employee at the sheriff's office and now a novelist and columnist for the News-Sentinel, says the sheriff is as fair as they come. A loyal Democrat, Hunter didn't vote for Hutchison the first time around. He's since been won over.
"I was there for three sheriffs and I saw plenty of political punishment in my day. But [Hutchison] had some bitter enemies when he became sheriff. They are still there if they did their job. I didn't see vindictiveness when I left the department [in 1993]. There were some people who left, but anybody who wanted to stay is there.
"The sheriff and I had some disagreements when he became sheriff. As far as I can see, the sheriff has taken care of his employees and given them the benefit of the doubt. I've never seen him sacrifice employees to make himself look better."
Hutchison insists he's fair in the way he treats employees. "You can see people who I promoted who opposed me in past elections," he says. "All I ask is they work hard for me. I don't care if they don't support me in the elections, and I'm not going to make them contribute to my campaign, as I had to in the past for other sheriffs."
Media Blitz
Tim Hutchison doesn't give many interviews these days. (His interview for this story came only after months of unreturned phone calls and ignored requests for information.) But he gave one this spring to CityView's Nathan Sparks. Titled "The High Sheriff," the article includes several pictures of Hutchison (shot by fashion photographer Jean-Philippe) standing next to his helicopters. The article gushes about the job Hutchison's done, and the magazine endorses him in the same issue.
In the article, Hutchison complains that the local media—particularly The Knoxville News-Sentinel and WBIR TV—unfairly attack him.
The relationship between the News-Sentinel and Hutchison has been particularly contentious. The Sentinel didn't endorse Hutchison in his first race, but there didn't seem to be any grounds for animosity. But in the summer of 1991, things took a bad turn.
It happened after the Sheriff's Department held a press conference to announce a big drug bust. The officers claimed they'd nabbed 200 pounds of marijuana and arrested four suspects. However, it turned out that the marijuana was actually supplied by the Sheriff's Department and that one of the four suspects was an informant. The paper felt betrayed, and aggressively reported the deception. "It was done for TV," says one person who worked at the Sentinel at the time. "It wasn't really done to bust anyone. That pissed off [Editor] Harry [Moskos] and [News Editor] Tom [Chester], so they went after the sheriff." The sheriff countered that the paper had jeopardized the life of an informant with its reporting.
Because of the newspaper's friendly relationship with Mayor Ashe, Hutchison and his supporters also thought the Sentinel was taking the city's side in the old city vs. county power struggle.
Relations hit rock bottom before the 1994 election, when Hutchison was in a fierce race with Rudy Bradley of the KPD. It was a sensationalistic, mud-slinging campaign.
Bad press seemed to erupt around Hutchison that year. His good friend and supporter Medical Examiner Randall Pedigo was under scrutiny for writing questionable narcotics prescriptions. As a physician, Pedigo treated Hutchison and several law officers, and Bradley supporters started whispering that the sheriff might be on drugs. (Bradley publicly challenged him to a drug test, which both passed). Then in June, Pedigo was wounded in a shootout with TBI agents. The agents had evidence that Pedigo was drugging young men and photographing them naked.
Finally, a week before the election, someone leaked photos to the Sentinel about "angel cuffing"—a practice where inmates were cuffed spread-eagle to jail-cell bars.
Although the timing was clearly political on the part of whoever tipped off the Sentinel, the paper's editors decided the story was too big to sit on until after the election. "There was always this assumption that the News-Sentinel had saved the angel-cuffing story for the week before the election. That was not true," the former Sentinel employee says. "We were aware it was saved [by the source], but that kind of information is hard for a reporter to ignore."
But as a political ploy, the angel-cuffing story didn't work. It might have actually helped Hutchison win—his supporters probably weren't that sympathetic to jail inmates, and it gave the sheriff an air of being tough on crime. Hutchison carried every precinct outside the city except one, and he carried several inside the city. He won the election by more than 6,000 votes. On election night, he told the Sentinel he felt he had waged two campaigns—one against Bradley and one against the newspaper.
After the election, Hutchison's supporters waged a phone-call campaign to the Cincinnati headquarters of E.W. Scripps—the Sentinel's parent company—threatening to pull advertising from the paper, the source says. "Nobody said 'leave the sheriff alone.' I just think it made Harry a little gun shy," he says.
But, bad feelings between the sheriff's office and local media linger. Hutchison told CityView, "I know that people at Channel 10 and the Sentinel meet and strategize on how they're going to attack me during the election."
Jack McElroy, the new editor of the Sentinel, says he doesn't know the history of Hutchison's ill will toward the paper. The paper collaborates with Channel 10 on many news projects, and they've examined documents obtained by lawyer Herb Moncier and County Commissioner Wanda Moody in their lawsuits against Hutchison (the Sentinel hasn't decided whether to write about them). But McElroy denies there is any conspiracy to get the sheriff. "I can categorically say we've never met with Channel 10 to talk about how we're going to attack the sheriff. In fact, we endorsed the sheriff [in the primary election]."
The conspiracies claimed by the sheriff and his supporters usually get traced back to Mayor Ashe. In the CityView article, Hutchison calls Moody a "Victor-ite" and notes that she's Ashe's aunt by marriage.
The conspiracy also apparently includes Metro Pulse. Martha Dooley, the sheriff's spokeswoman, delayed in returning phone calls for this story for months, and said Hutchison wouldn't grant an interview because Metro Pulse senior editor Barry Henderson editorialized against the sheriff in the primary. Dooley suggested it had something to do with the fact that Henderson's wife, Leslie Henderson, works for Ashe. (It's worth noting that Metro Pulse has written several critical articles and editorials about Leslie Henderson, the mayor's development director, and many more criticizing the mayor.)
There are times when Hutchison also comes off nervous and defensive. During a 45-minute interview, his answers are perfunctory. He often seems distracted, shuffling through papers and abruptly making phone calls without a word to the reporter.
The media attack him so often because of politics, he says. "It's a political process. My job is political. That's what democracy is all about. You can pick a side. [The media has] that right."
Despite his obvious mistrust of journalists, Hutchison clearly knows how to use the media, especially local TV news.
"He is a good PR person," says Lindsay-McDaniel. "When there are escaped convicts, if they were apprehended when Hutchison is out of town, he'd tell his people not to tell anyone they were caught and wait until he gets back into town to make an announcement."
Bill Lyons, UT political science professor and a local pollster, says Hutchison knows how to put the public at ease. "He does a good job of communicating and putting a public face on crime solving. He's good at communicating that," he says, pointing to how the sheriff is very much in the spotlight when a major crime has happened or a suspect is nabbed.
The sheriff says he's visible at crime scenes because he wants to support his officers and deputies. "When I was out on the street, the sheriff never showed up at the scene. I made sure I'd be out there supporting my officers."
Hutchison also has a knack for knowing when it's time to lay low. A perfect example was when the Justice Center project was put on hold in early 2000—something that was seen as a clear defeat of the sheriff's agenda. After that, he pretty much disappeared from the headlines for more than a year.
"He's got good political instincts," Lyons says. "If he is becoming a little too hot—in quotation marks—like on the Justice Center, he knows when to recede and be out of the spotlight for a while."
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