“About 15 police cruisers from three counties and a Knox County Helicopter all converged near my house on Sky Way searching for someone,” Tony Lambert, a Herald staff member stated.
Apparently a juvenile was picked up from a home on Burnett Lane for truancy. According to reports, the juvenile was handcuffed and placed in the Sevier County Deputies Cruiser.
Somehow, the juvenile forced his was out of the cruiser while the officer was talking with the juvenile’s mother.
A foot chase ensued up Sky Way, a very steep hill. That is where the juvenile was able to escape and cross over to Knox County.
By crossing over into another county, the Deputy, for lack of jurisdiction, contacted Knox County Sheriff’s Department to assist in the pursuit.
Not long after, several of the Knox, Sevier and Blount cruisers, including a K-9 unit, sped off in different directions to search for the juvenile.
“I got a call on my cell phone from my husband asking me where I was and when I’d be home,” Jenni Sanjurjo told the Herald.
Sanjurjo was informed by her husband that the police had gone door to door in the neighborhood asking people if they had seen anyone suspicious and to keep their doors locked as they were searching for an escaped convict.
“When I finally did get home and was inside, my husband said I wonder what he looks like and at that time I looked out the back window and saw this person peering over the fence and when he saw me looking at him, he took off running,” stated Sanjurjo. “I turned to my husband and said, I guess that’s what he looks like.”
“As I was coming home, at least seven cop cars were coming down Sky Way at a high rate of speed and pulled into Sanjurjo’s driveway,” stated Lambert.
“That must have been right after Jenni saw the juvenile,” Lambert surmised.
Two hours into the search the mother of the juvenile had contacted a relative, Mike Green who is the juvenile’s uncle, to assist in the search.
According to Lambert, about the same time as the cruisers were pulling into Sanjurjo’s driveway, Green drove up Burnett Lane and saw his nephew, the escaped juvenile, run across the street practically in front of him.
Green jumped out of his vehicle, and observed his nephew’s head bobbing up and down running in the weeds.
Lambert said, “Mike told me he immediately started running to intercept his nephew to prevent the K-9 from attacking him as an officer and the K-9 also observed the juvenile running. When Mike caught his nephew, he jumped on him and covered him to protect him from the K-9. While Mike laid on top of his nephew, the officer called the K-9 off just feet from the two on the ground.”
This juvenile still wore the handcuffs placed on him by the arresting officer three hours earlier. This time the juvenile was also shackled.
The juvenile was initially arrested because he didn’t attend a required meeting imposed by the juvenile truancy court.
The juvenile’s problem originally began when he skipped school for one month because of fear of getting beaten up again.
Apparently the juvenile had been jumped in school on three separate occasions without provocation on his part.
After the juvenile was recaptured, the ambulance was called to check the scratches and bruises he received from running thru the woods.
The juvenile was apprehended in Sevier County with the aid of at least fifteen deputies from three counties and a civilian.
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User Comments
Sounds familiar. The last great juvenile chase in Sevier County was when a deputy forgot to lock a cruiser door and the boy got out of handcuffs and loose, stole a police cruiser to make his get away, then stole another truck at the Walnut Grove Church because the cruiser was not fast enough. Then he led them on a county wide merry chase until THP got him with stop sticks. They promoted the deputy that let him get away to start all the fun to Sargent. That will fix it.
The moral of the story is we get what we pay for. We are not willing to pay decent wages for decent law enforcement. That seems to be a county wide mind set with everything, it does not have to be good, just cheap that's all. We seem to have the cheapest county commissioners as well. They can be bought for next to nothing!
convict - "a person who has been convicted of a criminal offence"
He wasn't convicted of anything yet. At best he was a detainee. So why keep calling him a "convict".
It's a pretty sad day when it takes 15 officers, a helicopter and K-9's to capture one child. How many thousands of dollars did they waste? Why not just come back later and pick him up again? He would have come back home sooner or later.
Nope instead of that, just waste 30 man hours of 15 cops, lots of gas driving all over the place. The helicopter bills out at over 1k and hour. After all he might hurt someone not going to school.
All over a kid that didn't go to school. WOW! Sevier county has some messed up law enforcement!
Sounds like we need a new sheriff.
Helicopter is more like 3 to 4k aHr (2 pilots are not cheap)
Kid doesn't want to go to school because he keeps getting assaulted...
CALL OUT THE HOUNDS, CALL OUT THE SWAT TEAMS, CALL OUT THE NATIONAL GUARDS, CALL OUT THE AIR FORCE BOMBERS.... WE HAVE A TRUANT IN SEVIER AND HE MUST BE PUNISHED.
Here's an idea for a judge...punish the little soon-to-be-convict for not wanting to be beat up by sending him to juvy where he can be beat up more regularly than what he was getting at a public school. Let's not fix the real problem!!! Let's do it the Sevier County way.
Do we put that much effort into chasing and punishing illegal immigrants??? By God, we'll go after kids not wanting to be beat up though!
Long Live Joe Karl for publishing the truth and letting us vent about it!!!
The helicopter is military surplus which cost nothing. Maintaining it is also cheep because Knox County has plenty of free parts from the military. The aircraft burns about 20gal/hr of JetA which is purchased at a discount rate of less than $3.00 gal.
The helicopter pilots are paid deputies, they receive no extra pay as crew members.
Nothing is free! I promise you this, that hellicopter is billed out at 1k an hour to taxpayers. It might only cost $200 an hour but it's billed out at 1k.
Nothing is cheap when it comes to our local governmnet. All they know how to do is waste.
We already know how crooked Knox county governement is over the sunshine law case. Now it's time to do some cleaning in Sevier County. It's beeen corupt far longer.
If one kid can cause this much problem, think how much trouble a few such juveniles might cause? Consider a gang of organized juveniles that are well funded and feel invincable- how much trouble could they cause? Now imagine if that gang of troubled juveniles was elected as your county commission - that's what we have in Sevier County. Nothing but trouble. The sheriff and the mayor need a wake up call.
I don't think you can produce a billing for the helicopter. I don't believe Knox County bills for it's use.
The records are public, so provide a bill for $1,000.00 hr. from Knox County for helicopter use.
Get a clue!
it is about a $1000 an hr, maint, fuel, etc. But isn't it telling that a 'truancy court' is here to save us when the little kiddies won't go to prison, I mean skewl. It is by design conditioning our society to always pay Ceasar when they run out of money. A police helicopter to catch a truant kid, who by all accounts probably is telling the truth about getting beat up and here is our public servants to make sure he is not missed. When a savings and loan or the next Enron is robbed by it's CEO, would someone please call out the Knox Co helicopter and see if they are available to respond.
According Helinews.com the estimated cost of operating a Bell 206B III is $200.00 hr. Knox County has Bell 206As which are smaller and cost less to operate. Since Knox County paid nothing for the aircraft or rooms full of new replacement parts, there operating cost will be well below $200.00 and hour.
You can also check with Rotor & Wing, PHI, or Edwards Helicopter if you want more than one source.
so we're arguing about what is charged or the amount of force used? I think these coppers love to get a rush out of chasing down a easy prey. Two donut chasers could of picked up this kid after he got tired of running and was hungry and came home. 15 cops and a helicopter, think about it.
...the tangents people will come up with due to one story. People b*&ch about the costs involved, the sheriff, etc, etc. but when someone is faced with a tax increase to take care of some of these issues, the same people b*&ch about that too. I'm convinced the backward government is a reflection of the people who vote...(or choose not to vote). In short, quit your b*&ching and do something about your issues.
....the guy who wants to argue the cost per hour is one of the doughnut eaters that fly it. He has to justify his overpaid job. I'de say more like $500 to $600 and hour when you factor everything in.
And to #14....we vote every time the polls are open and the peckerheads still get into office. It's all a crooked process that does no good because the winner is picked in a backroom meeting way before the polls open!
The only way to get the honest people in office that care about the community is to catch the crooked ones and have them made an example of.
#13 you are right, with it being cold outside he would have come back home to Mommy in a few hours and they could have picked him up then. In that time they could have investigated some local coruption within the Sevier county government. Nope...everyone knows you don't bite the hand that feeds you!
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