KNOXVILLE POLICE CHIEF'S BLUE-LIGHT SPECIAL:
Disgruntled Cops Mutiny Over Illegal Quota?

by John Lee
Pirate News TV

Strictly speaking, a driver can register a BAC of .00% and still be convicted of a DUI. The level of BAC does not clear a driver when it is below the "presumed level of intoxication."--1999 Tennessee Driver Handbook and Driver License Study Guide

Keith

Phil Keith had weathered an especially tough year as chief of Knoxville, Tennessee's police. The Knox County sheriff, Tim Hutchinson, was at war with the city police department, refusing all cooperation on even routine law enforcement matters. The sheriff was fighting off a proposed merger of the city and county governments which would have cost the sheriff his job -- and would have saved taxpayers a fortune. This victory earned him the National Sheriff of the Year award.

The sheriff, implicated in the newspapers in car theft (with a convicted murderer and using his cop car as lookout), arson, contracting fraud while building 400 houses as sheriff -- with his convicted felon, unlicensed business partner -- is now overseeing construction of Knox County's unneeded $300-million justice bunker (including interest), abandoning the largest building in Knoxville. Twenty of the chief's cops testified building the new jail was Fraud, Waste and Abuse of taxpayer funds since the old jail was never full (and the city jail was already abandoned), and crime rates are allegedly falling. This "falling crime rate" may be due simply to reclassification of crimes in the file system -- or destruction of crime files as police departments all over the USA, such as Atlanta, have been caught doing. The sheriff also heads up his own paramilitary air force equipped with night-vision video cameras which can make night-landings into rural areas. The sheriff can sell off the free military helicopters at a profit after 5 years (after taxpayers paid $30,000 each to rebuild them, plus the annual maintenance costs). (A previous Knox County sheriff, Joe Jenkins, was convicted of car theft to feed his cocaine hobby, and as sheriff allegedly threw week-long parties with free coke for guests.) The stakes were high in the city-verses-county law-enforcement battle over the proposed metroplolitan merger.

Cheif Keith also faced other public relations fiascos. City police officers had wrecked a confiscated vehicle after a police party, and the department had taken media heat for covering it up. No DWI/DUI investigation was made of the cops involved -- no blood-alcohol or field sobriety tests were required.

KPD

Keith's cops also made headlines after numerous deaths and unprovoked beatings of citizens under detention. Such Road Rage by cops kills hundreds of Americans every year, usually over routine traffic stops, according to the Chicago office of the American Automobile Association and the Criminal Justice Sciences department at the University of Illinois: Police Pursuit in Pursuit of Policy, 1992. The Knoxville government was even forced to purchase expensive videocameras for its fleet of police cruisers in an attempt to protect citizens from police violence, and a Police Advisory & Review Committee was initiated to keep a legal eye on the cops -- or at least to give the illusion of doing so, since it is run by a police department employee and has reportedly refused to investigate a single complaint.

The latest news was Knoxville government's criminal conspiracy of requiring illegal quotas for traffic police -- the department's most profitable divisssion, at least as far as fines and court costs are concerned. Although crime rates were allegedly falling, court revenues were expected to increase. Millions of dollars were up for grabs. This was leaked to the news media by Keith's enemies within his department only a couple of months before (or was that orchestrated by his enemy the sheriff?). The Knoxville Journal broke the front page story, with The Knoxville News Sentinel running its own front page story the next day. Up to 80 cops were reportedly facing reprisal for not enforcing the minimum quota, under budgetary pressures imposed by the Republican mayor Victor Ashe's office. Three stolen police commander emails were published, with seven more emails held in reserve. According to the attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police, one of the unpublished emails involved the police commander writing: "Don't believe everything you read in the papers. The quota is still in effect." Contrary to the falling crime rate, the Knoxville city budget predicted an increase in prosecutions of ordinary citizens for traffic "crimes." As "proof" that there was no quota, the police public-relations attorney bragged that "good" cops wrote 60 traffic tickets every day and thus didn't need added pressure of a 3-contact-per-day quota.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had just initiated a search for the cop(s) responsible for stealing $15,000 of citizens' inventory. According to a KPD source, the chief suspect was also observed looting a Bi-Lo grocery store after responding to a burglery there. No arrest was ever made in either crime. All in all, Keith enjoyed an interesting year of damage control and putting out fires.

According to his status as a highly paid government bureaucrat, Chief Keith enjoyed dining at the city's finest establishments. That night (9/18/98) it was Litton's Restaurant. After enjoying three beers with dinner (according to an anonymous informant to the District Attorney's office -- who coincidentally watched Keith's entire meal bite-by-bite), Keith got behind the wheel of his car and headed home. Just like thousands of his fellow Knoxville residents would also do that evening.

The chief was unaware that traffic patrol officer Scott Coffey had been waiting across the street for 45 minutes (according to police sources), with his radio off. Sitting with a radio turned off is allegedly a common habit of Knoxville cops, according to the Fraternal Order of Police lawyer, although this particular incident was believed to be premeditated, at least by the chief.

Chief Keith gets stopped again.

As soon as Keith pulled out of the restaurant parking lot in his unmarked police cruiser, officer Coffey turned on his emergency lights signalling a traffic stop for his boss. The chief pulled into a wrecker service parking lot across the street from the restaurant. Although officer Coffey contended he did not recognize Keith's car as a government vehicle since it did not have a government license plate, it was identical make and model to all other police cruisers, and its numerous radio antennas made it easily recognizable as a police vehicle. Officer Coffey pulled behind the chief's car, ensuring that the video camera caught the action (although it did not record any traffic violation). Coffey turned on his radio and informed dispatch that he was making a routine traffic stop.

Keith promptly exited his vehicle and approached his subordinate's police car. Although officer Coffey was trained to immediately go on the attack if a citizen were to attempt to do this -- using deadly force when needed--he remained calm and inside his cruiser. As a veteran officer, this indicated he instantly recognized the identity of the approaching individual.

Throughout the interview, officer Coffey maintained an upbeat and smirking tone of voice. Keith -- despite his 30-years as a cop, a graduate of the FBI Academy and a captain of his high school football team -- sounded scared and whiney.

Before arriving at work for his next day's shift, officer Coffey turned over his tapes to an attorney of the Fraternal Order of Police (a former cop and IRS investigator) who made copies of the video and audio tapes and immediately distributed them to all newsmedia outlets (as he had all the quota documents a couple months before). The FOP lawyer was instantly on the alert to handle any police retaliation Coffey might face. The mayor's office, district attorney's office and all newsmedia reports spun the angle that the chief had passed a rigorous field sobriety "test" -- allegedly the same test(s) as any other citizen--proving his lack of intoxication.

The deputy mayor issued the opinion, "Based on what I saw . . . it did not appear the chief was in any way impaired." After an "independent outside review," the D.A. issued a press release declaring: "Neither review of the tape or the interview with officer revealed any basis for charging anyone with an offense. Officer Coffey stated in the interview he found no basis after the stop for any charges and agreed with the assessment of the [district attorney's] office that there was no reason to bring any charges. . . . Officer Coffey handled this matter in a proper and professional manner and his decision not to charge in this case was the same decision he would have made with any other person stopped." The deputy mayor, a former television news anchorman accustomed to reading what he's told to read, proclaimed that Mayor Ashe "didn't want anyone to think we were trying to cover anything up," thus assuring the citizens all was well with their quota-funded government.

Local newsmedia censored from the public "what the deputy mayor saw" and heard on the video/audio tapes.

The Chief later admitted to drinking "low-alcohol" beer with his dinner. Although the city had a policy of zero-tolerance when operating a government vehicle police, the chief was not reprimanded in any way. When a KPD cop visited Litton's the day after the DUI stop, a manager admitted they didn't even serve low-alcohol beer.

This had been the chief's second traffic stop that year. He had been the passenger of the deputy chief when they were stopped for speeding by a Knoxville traffic cop. The chief had admitted to the officer he had enjoyed a beer with dinner. No tickets or arrests were made, and the commanders were permitted to continue on their way.

Although the police department refused to release the video and audio tapes to this author -- "We don't have anything like that here" the clerk lied -- in criminal violation of the Tennessee Public Records Act, The Knoxville News Sentinel installed the tapes on its web site, visible to those citizens who could afford a video-capable computer and the time to transcribe it. The Knoxville police routinely leak DWI tapes to the newsmedia after traffic stops of local politicians, which the newsmedia routinely ignore.

All newsmedia reported that the chief had successfully performed "a field sobriety test." The word "test" was singular, not plural. This was only the so-called Horizontal Nastagmus test (H.G. Task to guess blood-alcohol level to 1/100th of 1%), which is mandated to be performed with eyeglasses removed, which was not accomplished. All newsmedia failed to report that the chief was NOT required to perform any physical sobriety tests, such recitation of ABCs (a violation of the Miranda right), finger-to-nose test, standing-on-one-leg test, walking an imaginary straight line, etc, as other citizens are required to perform. No blood-alcohol "pre-test" was conducted, as is often required of "mere ordinary" citizens (which conveniently bypasses the need for a Miranda warning). No blood-alcohol test was made. (A BAC test is only done AFTER an arrest for DWI is made -- it is NOT possible to pass a BAC test at any score, since the decision to prosecute has already been made. A DWI prosecution cannot be reversed without the government risking being sued for false arrest, according to a Tennessee traffic court judge.)

The initial newsmedia spin was that Prohibition was in effect, and all citizens, including police officers, ought to be convicted of DWI for drinking alcohol beverages in a restaurant. There was no newsmedia discussion about the perils of Prohibition, although the media did eventually sense that they were party to an internal/intra-departmental police shake down.

Accompanying the chief's story on the front page of the Journal was a report about a Neighborhood Watch group complaining about Knoxville police refusing to answer 911 calls. The citizens' group, in a letter to the mayor, Ashe, believed 911 operators were "playing God," by deciding which calls to dispatch and which to ignore. "We need police attention in our area. . . . We don't call police unless they are needed. But, when we call, we expect a car to be sent to investigate. We pay taxes the same as citizens in other areas of our city."

Chief Keith had a tougher than usual year (despite his high taxpayer-derived income). His police chief counterpart in the city's Reserve Unit was arrested with a prostitute while he was driving a stolen car (the woman was arrested for possession of crack cocaine paraphernalia).

The final nail in the coffin, so to speak, was Keith's father dying from a single gunshot wound to the head. The coroner immediately ruled the apparent suicide a "cleaning" accident, perhaps insuring an insurance payout. No homicide investigation was made.

No arrests were ever made of the mayor, Victor Ashe, the police chief, Phil Keith, or the police commanders named in the stolen police emails, for their criminal conspiracy of requiring hundreds of cops to commit literally millions of crimes in Knox County by enforcing the illegal quotas. No RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act) civil prosecution has yet been made of Knoxville government officials. In a similar government-corruption case, a federal lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles in a $60-million class-action against Huntington Beach, California in 1991. Although it is a crime to "fix" traffic tickets or even to ask a cop to fix a traffic ticket, Phil Keith was never arrested for admittedly begging his way out of perhaps dozens of traffic-police stops during his 30-year police career. Begging in itself is not illegal, since this is allowed under "selective enforcement" options, when the ticket was not yet written or the arrest was not yet made. One definition of "selective enforcement" is that elite government employees, and familiy, are immune to criminal prosecution for their crimes, such as when Ashe's mother commited a hit-and-run crime from the mayor's house (as reported by The Knoxville Journal).

Such "selective enforcement" immunity in Knoxville includes the murder of off-duty motorcycle cop Tony Williams, in which the alleged perpetrators were arrested with the murder weapon in their possession and at least one confessed to the crime in a signed statement, yet had charges dropped due to action of a relative in the Knoxville government, according to a source inside the KPD. This "unsolved mystery" occurred in 1989, the first year Ashe and Keith took power. Apparently the chief was more interested in purchasing 125 brand new police cars.

Traffic "crimes" represent 90% of all law enforcement effort in the USA -- a multi-billion dollar "tax-at-gunpoint" industry. Normal driving behavior is criminalized. Every year police make 50-million "routine" traffic stops of ordinary, law-abiding citizens, and 2-million of those citizens are arrested for DWI/DUI. This DWI/DUI traffic stop of the chief of police as he left a restaurant illustrates that typical DWI/DUI arrests are as easy as shooting fish in a barrel -- even for high-ranking government cops, judges and politicians. (It's also very easy to set someone up, if desired.) Unless a citizen has $10,000 for a motivated and competent legal defense in a real court, he or she will be forced to pay $3,000 in fines and fees to a court that may not even have a lawyer as a judge -- "saving" $7,000 in legal fees, i.e., "extortion by the court" as lawyers call it. Meanwhile, as Ralph Nader wrote in Unsafe at Any Speed -- The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, the real cause of injury and death on the highways remains unchanged: (1) defective government roads and illegally unsafe (and grotesquely expensive) construction/demolition projects, (2) government regulations that ensure vehicles are no more crashworthy than tin cans, and, as this author says, (3) pathetic driver education in emergency techniques by the government schools and licensing bureaurocracies.

One KPD source summed up the alleged situation: "There is no integrity in our department. Everybody knows Phil Keith gets hammered. If it's bad enough the lieutenant drives him home." As the chief allegedly brags in front of his troops, "I'm gonna have a bad night." The source continued, "The dirtier it gets the more you see. Nobody wants to do a damn thing about it."

Author's home in top floor of building on left.

It wouldn't be the first time a government employee was upset with the investigative efforts of this author. While reporting Fraud, Waste and Abuse and other crimes of high-ranking Air Force officers to the U.S. Congress and Vice President Al Gore and U.S. Ambassador to China Jim Sasser, tape recorded death threats were made. This author has also taken a bullet fired into his car during a serial killer's second murder trial in Knoxville. Perhaps it was a warning, since the car was parked at the time. This overt attempt at investigation intimidation and public-relations censorship failed, with the killer receiving his second murder conviction. According to the chief of police, the hit man killed six people. According to the district attorney, the assassin worked for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He is due for monthly parole hearings as of 4 January 2000, after serving 3 years of a 25-year murder sentence, 1.5 years shy of his minimum sentence (which even the district attorney's office didn't know about). (Details of this story are due to appear in a national magazine. Our government pays career criminals $100-million of our tax dollars every year, basically to "inform" on subordinates, competitors and anyone else they know, according to our government.)

Graffiti at crime scene of theft of author's car.

At the same time, this author received a phone call from Chief Keith (caught on tape -- it was the second time Keith called), had a KPD car parked on his back doorstep on Christmas Eve (photographed), was followed and stopped by KPD (on a trumped-up traffic violation allegation by a close associate of the chief of police who's "on the fast track" despite crashing his patrol car five times during his five-year career. Case dismissed.). On another occasion, the author was nearly run off the road by an overtaking KPD patrol car (which was 2 feet inside the author's lane) -- its driver was jabbering on his police radio about the author's hometown which was outside the cop's jurisdiction. The author was also nearly hit head on by a Blount County patrol car 3 feet inside the author's lane, while riding a motorcycle on U.S. 129. (Another police-caused severe crash occurred to an innocent bystander in front of the author 15 years prior, so it was not related, but it did injure or kill the occupants of that car when they trusted the green traffic light. The cop T-boned the car in the passenger door as the innocent driver crossed the intersection. Both cars were knocked 100 feet sideways in the blink of an eye. Had it been the author's car that was hit, his passenger would surely have been killed, and perhaps the author, too. This author was "young and stupid," and did not stop to testify against the cop for his deadly crime.)

Graffiti at crime scene referring to author's helmet sticker.

Knox County Sheriff's Department (KCSD) deputies also appear to behave strangely around the author while in public (according to a witness). The author was also followed from a doctor's office by a Tennessee Highway Patrolman who was outside his assigned county. Without going into details, the same week as most of these events the author's home nearly burned down on 29 December, 1999, after an accidental fire next door at a building under renovation. The author's car was coincidentally stolen two weeks later, despite being closely surrounded by half a dozen law-enforcement agencies and an army of nearly 1,000 cops. At the crime scene, "ghetto graffiti" said "KPD PROVE" and other web-site and personal information. Phone calls to Knoxville Police Department (KPD) and to its contracted towing service, Sutherland Avenue Wrecking, alleged they did not have the car. The car was then reported stolen to the car theft detail of KPD. Six weeks later, Sutherland Avenue Wrecker Service mailed a letter of notification that it towed my car under authority of KPD. A Sutherland employee declared it cannot tow a vehicle until ordered to do so by KPD. Tennessee law requires wrecker companies to notify owners within 30 days (why not same day?). It has 15 days to notify the KPD car theft division. Yet Sutherland busted both time limits, meaning it committed car theft. Was "KPD Prove" intended by KPD to dare this author to dare to prove the cover up of the murdered KPD police officer? Allegedly my car was blocking a fire lane, rather than parked legally in the author's loading zone. KPD refused to tow a large truck which really was blocking the fire lane overnight (cleaning up the fire damage with "PD" plates), ticketing the truck with a $25 citation. "Meter maids" ignore all other vehicles parked in the same spot, since it is not illegal to do so. In the author's case, the parking ticket charge was $1,000, increasing at $150 every week. (What's the phone number to the Guiness Book of World Records?)

Crime scene graffiti that on first glance implicates "KPD".

KPD is not the only suspect in the mysterious theft and reappearance of the authror's car. According to a KPD source, Senator Koella, the convicted-hit-and-run killer of a tourist was involved in a viciously ruthless, state-wide car-theft ring that's capable of murder. Former Knox County sheriff Joe Jenkins, an associate of the alleged cop-killers, also was convicted of many car thefts -- he is a bail bondsman in Knoxville toddday. Current Knox County sheriff Tim Hutchinson is alleged by his ex-chief of detectives to steal cars with a convicted murderer. Another of the author's cars avoided vandalism of an entire parking lot after an unexpected shift-change (one block from the KPD bunker). Uniformed and armed police officers coincidentally sat next to this author in a college library -- despite admitting to not being a student (caught on tape) -- and parked next to the author while he worked on his car for one hour (photographed). An "undercover" private eye or informant coincidentally confronted a friend of the author, then pretended to be a drunk while "spying" on the group for several hours (at a distance of 10 feet). As a Loudon County cop advised this author, "Be careful out there." That week judicial commissioners reportedly told the Knoxville Journal that sheriffs deputies routinely use intimidation tactics on commissioners -- especially when commissioners complainnn about fraudulent warrents issued on fictitious suspects to illegally search people's houses. One commissioner reportedly told a friend, "if anything happens to me, have somebody investigate the sheriff's department."

Downtown Beruit? View from author's back door of the sheriff's destruction of downtown Knoxville (where his car was stolen).

That week after the accidental fire, the mayor held his "mayor's night out" at the brew pub next door (but abstained from enjoyment), and along with his KPD commander, attempted to show support of downtown Knoxville. Within a couple of days he withdrew his and the KPD's support of the "Justice" Center (leaving the sheriff out on a limb with a gang of business-minded citizens attempting to saw it off). On the day of the fire, the mayor and KPD announced the hiring of an outspoken (and fired) sheriff's department detective who will work exclusively on unsolved murders (I wonder if he is interested in solving a cop-killing allegedly tolerated by the KPD?). As the sheriff's chief of detectives, Lieutenant Jimmy Jones's resignation letter reportedly observed the part-time National Sheriff of the Year "turned into a paranoid, selfish, power-crazed tyrant," who offered "virtually nonexistant" cooperation with any other law enforcement agencies. (They say you're not really "paranoid" if they're really out to get you.) Also on the day of the fire, the Sentinel ran a story on the front of the business section telling how literally the nation and world approved of Knoxville destroying historic buildings, successful businesses and parking garages and replacing them with taxpayer-funded buildings that compete with private businesses (with a photo of my home). This story was written by a "deputy clerk of the court", not an active-duty journalist, and told how the "Justice" Center (a downtown maximum-security prison) was unstoppable by the public. The next day, my home moved to the front page of the Sentinel, with banner headlines proclaiming the accidental fire a towering "inferno". At any rate, it's lucky the wind didn't shift 90 degrees, or that accidental fire would have eliminated the one and only case file of Barnard vs. Koella. As it was, the author's home only suffered relatively minor smoke and water damage, with a few burn holes in the flammable roof. What's coincidence and what's not? Do the probability and statistics. At least it's good to know the police are everywhere when one needs them.

As one local police officer described it to this author: "It's not about politics. It's about money. You start fucking with their money and you better watch out." Coincidentally, part-time Sheriff Tim Hutchinson was "fired" from his part-time job as general contractor of the $300-million prison, and construction was suspended until "public hearings" could be held. The Knoxville Journal wrote that "the media wolves" were "snapping at Sheriff Tim's heels", referring to employee desertions at KCSD, and "Wonder how many more rats will desert the sinking ship?" It was a busy first month of the new millenium.

As a footnote, eyewitnesses observe that today Chief Keith -- and Mayor Ashe -- are careful to drinkkk only non-alcohol beverages when in restaurants serving alcohol. These government leaders understand the reality of alcohol Prohibition in America. And the author's phone lines now burn out from "overload" every time that computer files are uploaded to this web site. The KPD car theft case remains open while KPD detectives "search" for the author's stolen car.

DEEP THOUGHTS

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
--Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill

JOKE OF THE DAY

In an effort to determine the top crime fighting agency in the country, the president narrowed the field to three finalists, the CIA, the FBI, and the Knoxville City/County Police. The three remaining contenders were given the task of catching a rabbit which was released into the forest. The CIA went into the forest. They placed animal informants throughout. They questioned all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigation they concluded that rabbits do not exist. The FBI went into the forest. After two weeks without a capture, they burned the forest killing everything in it, including the rabbit. They made no apologies. The rabbit deserved it. The local cops went into the forest. They came out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear was yelling "Okay, Okay, I'm a rabbit, I'm a rabbit".

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