Small Town Law Enforcement that Refuses to Enforce
What started as a quick study break for a group of college students, quickly turned into an all-nighter, but not for the reasons you may think.
On October 28th, 2016, University of Tennessee students, including myself, Zana Hekmat, and Hannah James had been in the library all day working hard in preparing for our exam the following day. It was around 11:00 or 11:30 p.m. when one of us had the idea to take a study break at Knoxville's famous, scenic location "The Bluffs". We piled into Zana's car and threw our backpacks filled with books, computers, and wallets in the truck. After arriving to the overlook around midnight, we spent time taking pictures of the lookout, as most college students in the area do at "The Bluffs".
Around 1:30 a.m., Zana drove everyone back to campus to study some more. As Hannah got out to grab her backpack from the trunk of the car, the feeling of anxiety set in as she said "our stuff isn't there". Zana and I, of course, thought she was joking around but when her face went white and did not change, we knew it was serious. Zana and I bolted out of the front of the car to see the completely empty trunk for ourselves. It was true and reality had sunk in.
Frozen in place, I grabbed my phone and immediately dialed 911. As I began to explain the situation to the operator, I began to feel more and more helpless and after a few phone line transfers, I finally got through to an officer.
By that time, it was already 2:00 a.m. and we were still standing at the car on campus. I was on the phone with an officer begging him to send someone to meet us at the scene of the crime. I gave him every detail. On the other end of the line, the officer was asking for names, specific items that were in each backpack, and details about the car we were driving. After some unnecessary convincing, they finally agreed to dispatch an officer to meet us students back at “The Bluffs” parking lot to investigate and form a case.
We drove back to the crime scene and did some investigating of our own. We walked around the parking lot and waited 30 minutes only to get a call saying there were no officers available to come assist us. It was at that moment when we all realized no one was going to help us get our stuff back.
We continued to roam around, looking for any sign or trace of the stolen items. We found nothing. After deciding to give up for the night, we began to walk back towards the car. We were caught off guard when a huge, lifted Jeep Wrangler with green neon underglow flew past them around the curve of the hill and vanished out of sight. That is until the vehicle turned around and came back to the parking lot, pulling in right next to Zana’s car.
We were the only two cars there, seeing as how it was already 3:00 a.m.. They rolled down the window of their car and just watched us others get into ours. There was some obvious tension between the vehicles. That’s when the other college-aged students yelled to Zana, asking him if this was “the bluffs”. Zana simply nodded in response. After getting the answer, they quickly rolled the window back up and waited for us to back out. Watching the interaction, Hannah and I noticed that the jeep was never put in ‘park’. It was in reverse the entire time. As Zana began to slowly back out of the parking lot, the jeep whipped out of the spot and flew down the road in the opposite direction. This odd encounter put the jeep on our radar as possible suspects.
Zana drove everyone back to campus to give up for the night. That’s when I called in to add the information about the suspicious vehicle to their case, unsure if there even was one. They told me the information had been added. After arriving back to campus and getting ready to give up for the night, we got a call from an officer. Someone was on call and an officer was now able to come examine the vehicle for fingerprints.
Around 4:00 a.m., an officer came to the parked car at an apartment complex close to campus. After further examination and prints were taken, the officer packed up his things and the night began to come to an end. He told us that we probably were not going to get our things back and that even if there were fingerprint results, its almost impossible to match them to a suspect unless the were already in the system.
The officers eliminated all hope for retrieval of the stolen property. We then remembered the “Find My iPhone” application on our phones and after setting things up and logging into the system, all we had to do was wait for one of our MacBooks to go online. Once this happened, it would alert the correct owner, informing them of the current location for the stolen items. I asked the officer if someone could meet us to retrieve the items as soon as the location was revealed. He confirmed that yes, someone would go with the victims to collect their property.
Things died down and the night ended at 5:00 a.m. with us emailing our professors for tomorrow’s classes, including the the exam we were studying for all day. To our advantage, most of our professors were more than willing to cooperate in making up missed material the next day. I did not crawl into bed until 5:30 a.m. that morning.
The bigger issue this story addresses is the fact that sometimes, small town law enforcement refuses to enforce for various reasons. This country should be questioning stories that end with the victim becoming their own investigator. Ask questions that challenge this. Ask things like “what keeps law enforcement from getting involved with a robbery?” and “what are officers actually required to do in the case of a robbery?”
It is obvious how much easier it is to catch and arrest the bad guy right in front of you rather than trying to catch the actual bad guy, who could essentially be anywhere. But, this simple challenge should not keep officers from assisting the victims and responding to their calls for help.
Per case law, police don’t not have a constitutional duty to protect citizens from harm. Some officers that that to heart and live it out faithfully. Some view their role as someone who just makes arrests and issue fines. This is why some officers do not even investigate.
I reached out to local law enforcement and the specific officer on my particular case, but did not hear back. I asked if there was any input that they could add to help the public understand why sometimes the police can’t enforce certain things or if they agreed that officers should have gone with the victims to retrieve items.
A few days went by with some anxious phone calls asking for updates to the case. It was the longest few days of our lives. We spent every chance that we had next to our phones, waiting for a location to pin. In the meantime, I asked the officers if they could retrieve surveillance footage from the surrounding apartment complexes in the area near the bluffs. After their refusal, I took matters into my own hands. I reached out to at least six different apartment complexes asking for security camera and entrance way footage. Almost all of these agreed to supply the tapes, and even include a list of every resident who drove the suspected car.
It took me that much effort to get somewhere the cops were unwilling to go. Isn’t it the law enforcement’s job to do the dirty work? Is this not what they signed up for, solving cases?
On October 31, Hannah’s computer location was sent to the new MacBook she had just bought as a replacement. It was around 8:00 p.m. when all three of us met up and notified the authorities. After calling into our specific case number, I got redirected to ‘another officer’ over 15 times. No one was willing to help. We had been promised retrieval. The location was only a few miles from “the bluffs”, so it had to be accurate. The operators informed me that they were trying to send someone our way and to go to a public place to meet the officer. So, we followed directions and drove to UT Medical Center, parking in a large open area. After waiting 30 minutes or so, I would call back asking for an update and every time, she got a different answer. Some of the responses told us to stay put because an officer was on their way. Others told us that it was just a busy night and to wait it out. These phone calls repeated in various forms with various responses until around 11:00 p.m.
It was about that time when we saw a cop in their car and had to flag them down. It was not even a cop assigned to assist us. We asked if someone could please just tell us what was going on. He got on the radio and clarified the situation, realizing how pointless it truly was. “They are saying it’s too late at night to do retrievals. I would go but I am a campus police officer and I am not on your case.”
By this point, the thieves more than likely escaped. It was a four-hour process just to communicate with the police station. If things would have been enforced when the location was first released, it would have only been 8:00 p.m. instead of 11:00 p.m. The officers’ refusal to cooperate almost costed us the entire case. The only thing left to do was to drive home and get some sleep.
That next day as soon as someone went on duty, I met an officer at the pinned location. It was an empty field with an abandon boat in the middle. The thieves had obviously already fled.
One of the next few mornings, I got a message from a girl on Facebook saying “Hi, my grandmother just found 3 apple computers in her yard, and your name was on a broken debit card in the bag they were in. They were clearly stolen. Have you had a computer stolen? Or am I taking to the wrong person?” My heart melted with relief.
Long story short, the woman who found the computers in her yard brought them to the station. When we called in asking to come pick them up at the station, we were almost turned down because it was “too late in the day”. That seems to be a constant trend with the local law enforcement.
In the end, it took our aggressiveness to get anywhere with the case. It’s been a month now and we have still not even received the fingerprint results.
When I asked the other victims how they felt about the involvement of law enforcement and the case in general, their answers were very similar. Hannah James said “The officers we were involved with were not interested in getting involved with us, whatsoever”. The driver and owner of the car which the items were stolen out of, Zana Hekmat says he is “upset with the local law enforcement in Knoxville. It took our own negotiations even to go down to the station and pick up our property.”
