Category: News

A 17-year-old Tullahoma resident and a Smithville woman are in trouble for possession after they were stopped by Tullahoma Police on Wednesday (March 29).
Arayna Lynn Arrocha, 26, of Smithville was issued a citation for possession of drug paraphernalia, driving on revoke/suspended license, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and light law.
A 17-year-old, who was a passenger in her vehicle, was charged with unlawful possession of weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia and manufacture/sell of a controlled substance.
According to a Tullahoma Police report by Officer Michael Wilder, a vehicle operated by Arrocha was stopped on East Carroll Street for a light law violation. When the officer approached the vehicle he detected the odor of marijuana.
He then got both Arrocha and the juvenile out of the vehicle and searched the vehicle. He allegedly found a backpack with a loaded handgun and individual bags of marijuana and a set of digital. After the officer placed the juvenile in his patrol car the juvenile allegedly threw a bag of marijuana in the floor of the car.
The juvenile was transported to a juvenile detention center in Rutherford County and is to appear in Coffee County Juvenile Court on April 13.

Tennessee counties may be reconsidering their use of solitary confinement for juveniles after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Rutherford County from subjecting youths to isolation cells.
The ruling comes as a result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 15-year-old detainee who was held in confinement for five days. His attorney, Mark Downton, questioned what would happen if a parent inflicted a similar punishment.
“I believe if a parent did anything like this to a child, DCS would remove that child from a parent’s care; they would consider it barbaric and abusive,” Dawnton said. “And it’s appalling to me that the state and county governments can engage is such behavior, the same behavior that would cause a parent to lose their rights.”
Downton’s case now is a class action suit representing all juveniles placed in solitary confinement in the county since April 2015. Court records show that 128 juveniles in Rutherford County were put in isolation as punishment during seven months in 2016.
Calls to the Rutherford County attorney for comment were not returned.
A recent report by the ACLU found numerous studies demonstrating that solitary confinement can have long-term negative psychological effects on youth, and also can exacerbate existing mental issues. Downton explained further.
“This is a practice that amounts almost to the level of torture to children,” he said. “Kids particularly, more than adults, need stimulation and they need some sort of contact with the world. And what happens in solitary confinement is all of that stimuli is removed from them. ”
In 2016, President Obama banned the practice for juveniles in the federal prison system. The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services guidelines about solitary confinement of juveniles do not extend to county facilities.
Some Coffee County youths serving time in a juvenile detention center are housed in Rutherford County.

Al White Motors and WMSR (Thunder Radio) are teaming up to honor those who serve that thin blue line, our local law enforcement. Each month someone in law enforcement will be honored as a Hometown Hero.
Our hero this month is Manchester Officer Dustan Foster.
Officer Foster began his career at Franklin County Sheriff’s Department in 1998. He worked there for 8 years until 2006. He served with numerous ranks and ultimately became a Captain with Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.
Officer Foster became employed with Manchester Police Department in 2007. He is a very dedicated officer. He has a tremendous work ethic.
Officer Foster continues to work part-time as an officer for Sewanee, University of The South.
Officer Foster has been in Law Enforcement for 18 years. He has completed numerous specialized training classes including tactical training, Leadership Training, narcotics training and Meth Lab training.
We are continuing to ask for the public’s help for more hometown heroes. Go to our Facebook page or the Al White Ford Lincoln Mercury Facebook page to nominate a law enforcement official. Tell us why you think someone that serves Coffee County in law enforcement deserves to be chosen as a “Hometown Hero”. The man or woman that is selected each month will be recognized on WMSRradio.com and receive a nice surprise from Al White Motors.
Thank you to all that serve and protect us, our Hometown Heroes.

A Tullahoma Firefighter has been suspended following his arrest on sex charges in Moore County.
James David Huskey, 39, a firefighter with Tullahoma Fire Department was arrested Monday March 27 on charges of rape of a child. He was arrested by the Moore County Sheriff’s Department on the charges. Sheriff Mark Logan said Tuesday that Investigator Mike Rainey had been investigating the allegations but the sheriff did not release further information.
The age of the girl was not available.
Huskey is being held in the Moore County Jail under a bond of $100,000 pending an appearance in the Moore County General Sessions Court.
According to a statement issued by the City of Tullahoma spokesman Winston Brooks, Huskey has been suspended from his job as a full time firefighter due to the charges. He has been a firefighter since 2013. “He will remain suspended pending the predisposition hearing,” the press release stated.

The man who allegedly led authorities on a high speed pursuit from Coffee County to Rutherford County, which ended in a fatal crash, has a new court date. Twenty-nine year old Garieon Simmons of Decherd was arraigned earlier this week on charges of vehicular homicide, two counts of aggravated assault, evading arrest, driving on a revoked license, violation of probation and being a habitual motor vehicle offender.
He will return to Judge David Bragg’s courtroom as attorneys continue to discuss his case on April 7th.
Simmons is accused of leading a high speed pursuit that began in Manchester and ended in Murfreesboro on June 24th, 2016. The pursuit ended in a crash on South Church Street which took the life of 28-year old Jennifer Campos. As she was turning out of a parking lot just past Veterans Parkway, her vehicle was hit in the driver’s side door. Campos died at the scene while her seven month old child survived.

The Coffee County official 2010 Census population, as of April 1 that year, was 52,796, while the Census Bureau estimates that as of July 1, 2016, the county’s population was 54,681 a difference of 3.57 percent.
Over the most-recent one-year period for which estimates are available, from 2015 to 2016, the county grew by 0.74 percent.
The census estimates have Tennessee’s 2016 population at 6.65 million in 2016, which was nearly 1 percent more than 2015.

In a unanimous opinion, the state’s highest court said that using the drug pentobarbital to execute condemned prisoners is constitutional. The drug is often used by veterinarians to euthanize animals.
The Tennessean reported earlier this month that the state currently does not have access to the drug. Drugs used in lethal injections have become harder for states to secure because manufacturers have refused to sell them to prisons for executions.
Tennessee has passed a law that allows for death by electrocution in the event that drugs used for lethal injection are unavailable.
The Supreme Court decision stems from a lawsuit filed in 2013 by four condemned prisoners that several other inmates were later allowed to join.

A man from Cedar Lane in Tullahoma was arrested March 27 on charges of aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping. Arrested was Randy Lee Hatfield, 51 of Cedar Lane.
According to warrants obtained by Tullahoma Police Officer Phillip Smith, Hatfield assaulted a female and each time she tried to get away from him he would grab her and prevent her from leaving. The warrant alleges that he assaulted her with a ball bat and a chair. He is also accused of striking the woman with a chair and banging her on the floor and beat her with his fist.
The victim was transported to Tennova—Harton Hospital in Tullahoma for treatment of her injuries.
Hatfield is being held under a bond of $125,000. He appeared in Coffee County General Sessions Court March 28.

A Riley Creek Road woman reported that her debit card had been used without her approval late last week.
The woman told Tullahoma Police Officer Derrick Derlien on March 25 that she had made a purchase at Wal-Mart on March 21. She then noticed on March 23 that a charge of $199.99 had been taken from her account at the store, but that she didn’t make it. When she contacted an employee of the store on North Jackson Street she was told that an unknown person had “hacked” into the self-checkout register and used it the night before and transferred money from her account.
Detective Tyler Hatfield is investigating the incident.