As I noted in my most recent post at Justice for Henry, Knoxville News Sentinel reporter Jamie Satterfield’s February 12, 2012 front page story contained this passage related to Knox County Sheriff’s Office Detective Brad Hall, the criminal investigator who was officially assigned to Henry’s case from beginning to end:
In May 2010, sheriff’s Deputy Denver Scalf III and sheriff’s Detective Brad Hall caught *(Deena Castleman, the woman whom Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner was criminally exploiting in an ongoing sex-for-drugs scheme) soliciting truckers at a Strawberry Plains truck stop. To try to avoid arrest, she begged them to call Baumgartner and even gave them his number, records show. When they dialed the number, Baumgartner answered, listened to the deputies’ explanation for the call and hung up.
There is no mention of the call in the deputies’ report, but the story surfaced after Baumgartner twice tried to intercede on Castleman’s behalf, first with General Sessions Judge Andrew Jackson VI and later with prosecutor Jeff Blevins. Castleman later confirmed the incident in an interview with both the News Sentinel and the TBI.
*NOTE FROM KATIE: The Deena Castleman description contained in parentheses in the first sentence is my own, replacing for clarity the word “her,” which appeared in that place in the original News Sentinel article.
In a February 12, 2012 comment at local message board KnoxBlab, Knoxville News Sentinel reporter Jamie Satterfield clarified for me and others that in the incident she described in the passage above, Detective Hall was not called to the truckstop to respond to the situation with Castleman soliciting drivers, but was instead on-site already with fellow KCSO deputy Denver Scalf because both were “moonlighting,” and providing private security of some sort (not sure who the actual employer was, but one would assume that it would be the company that owns the truckstop). It was apparently just a random coincidence that two KCSO deputies were moonlighting at that particular truckstop on that evening. Ms. Satterfield further noted in her KnoxBlab comment that Deena Castleman was “cited” as part of the incident she describes in her story.
While I certainly appreciate that our underpaid law enforcement personnel are too often forced to work extra jobs just to make ends meet, I am somewhat frustrated to learn that during the same month of 2010 when KCSO Detective Hall apparently could not make the time to come interview Henry on his deathbed, take and examine his cell phone, or even meet in person with our family while on duty as a “Detective 2″ with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office (a position that the Knox County employee database indicates pays him more than 58K annually, not counting benefits), he was able to find the time to work extra hours for a private-pay employer.
Frankly, it seems questionable to me that a KCSO detective at that rank – someone qualified for KCSO overtime pay when he works extra time on his own assigned cases – would be working as a security guard at an interstate truckstop on the edge of Knox County during his off hours.
Additionally, I am unclear how Ms. Castleman was “cited” in this incident. Are off duty KCSO deputies working for a private pay employer able to issue official, KCSO citations during those private pay work hours? Or would they need to summon an on-duty KCSO deputy to create the citation? What became of that citation? What was the ultimate disposition in the Knox County court system?
Last, would county-taxpayer-provided phone records (Baumgartner’s and/or the two KCSO officers’) not provide confirmation of this call Castleman claims took place? If the phone records do show that the call took place, yet the KCSO officers in question failed to note that it took place in the official incident report that they apparently did write up per Ms. Satterfield’s account of the incident, should they not be disciplined for that failure? Would their failure to note something so important in an official incident report not call into question their veracity and accuracy of documentation in other cases?
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Follow the money. You already showed that the Knox County sheriff makes a very low number of drug arrests every year. Now you have his higher level officers working private security jobs at a truck stop on the interstate. Knox County is located directly on the drug runner interstate corridor up and down the interstate from north to south and back again. Do you know how many if not most drug shipments get moved from north to south and east to west? In trucks traveling the interstates, trucks that stop at truckstops in Knox County, Tennessee.
It would be interesting to know how many KCSO employees “moonlight” during their off-hours, where they do it, and what their second jobs actually entail.
Luke – I am sure many do it because frankly – in general – we don’t pay law enforcement officers enough and they have bills to pay. In no way am I suggesting that there is anything wrong in general with deputies working a second job if that helps their families.
However, I do think that there should be clear policies and procedures in place for active duty law enforcement personnel who also work private security jobs to prevent any possible conflicts of interest or corruption (and there probably are such policies; I am trying to locate them now). And in this specific case – involving a pretty high ranking major crimes detective who is eligible for overtime pay that certainly offers more $$$ than your standard part time security guard gig at a truckstop – there seem to be some questions that need asking. Especially in the larger context of Baumgartner, Castleman, Henry, low # of drug arrests, the way Hall provably failed to adequately investigate known drug dealers Harper and HOuser, etc
-Katie
Seems like there was a reason that Brad Hall was moonlighting at the truck-stop. More than just the extra pay. Just my take on it.
Can anyone tell me why Brad Hall was sitting in a patrol car with another officer at 2:00 am in the Rush parking lot on Kingston Pk in Farragut.
You should be able to request a copy of the KCSO’s policy on moonlighting, for some of the answers to your questions.
Does anyone know?
Has the truckstop confirmed Hall and Scalf were in fact contracted as security guards?
Has anyone inquired? If not, should someone inquire?
According to http://www.knoxsheriff.org, yesterday, Detective Brad Hall was named “December 2011 Detective of the Month.” Really????? That disgusts me.