Losing your wallet in Cookville, Tennessee can get you handcuffed on the side of the highway and your dog shot to death by police. At least that was the experience of a North Carolina family returning from vacation in Nashville. Private stop traumatizes family.
00:00:57.000And this just shows how the militarization of police and the corruption of society Which then gives police, basically on hair-trigger guard, is endangering all of us, and this policy of shooting people's dogs for almost nothing.
00:01:14.000Mr. Smoke, thanks for joining us today.
00:01:21.000Well, there's a couple of corrections there.
00:01:23.000Yes, basically what you just said was accurate, but the wallet flew off on the interstate, somewhere around the 226 mile mark, according to the Tennessee State Police.
00:01:36.000So the car probably had to get up to speed before the wallet actually blew off.
00:01:41.000Now, why did they panic so much at a wallet flying off of a car?
00:01:46.000A citizen with a cell phone called them saying that a large sum of money was seen flying through the air off of my car and felt that something was suspicious that there was probably a robbery.
00:02:00.000And so they took that and turned it into a possible armed robbery.
00:02:04.000And I've also seen written in some of the police documents possible carjacking.
00:02:35.000And there's no real terrorist to report on.
00:02:37.000Everybody's just hysterically reporting on their neighbor.
00:02:40.000Uh, there was a report last week out of the AP out of Maryland, out of Rockville, Maryland, where they have 10,000 plus phone calls about, oh, my neighbor's got a gun.
00:02:50.000Well, now they're just SWAT teaming everybody's house, even though the guns aren't illegal, using those tips after the fact.
00:02:57.000So, it's, this just shows what the Tattletail Society and overreacting does.
00:03:01.000So, break down, Mr. Smoke, exactly what happened to you.
00:03:05.000Uh, first of all, we went to Opterland Hotel years ago, my wife and I, on our honeymoon.
00:03:10.000So we planned a family vacation because we had heard that they'd added the Delta in the late 90s and the hotel had doubled in size.
00:03:17.000And we were amazed at how beautiful the inside the hotel was, so we planned another family vacation to Nashville.
00:03:23.000Everything went lovely until the way home.
00:03:27.000Two years day, I stopped at exit 221 to get gas.
00:03:33.000There was a gentleman there that was admiring my dog.
00:03:35.000Uh, Gerald Patton is what we named him.
00:03:38.000And I was showing my dog off because he's such a gentle natured dog and let him pet him and showed him and in the process of showing my dog off I left my wallet on top of the car obviously.
00:03:48.000But unbeknownst to me we pull off and leave and go down the interstate approximately five miles down the interstate the wallet flies off the lady makes the call and sets the wheels in motion for the incident that happened on mile marker 287 in town of Cooksville, Tennessee.
00:04:05.000Approximately six miles before 287 I'm doing 70 miles an hour, headed east on I-40.
00:04:11.000Toward home, I notice a Tennessee State Trooper coming up the road.
00:04:18.000But as he approached my car, he braked back and got directly behind me.
00:04:22.000So six miles, we follow, he matches me, lane change for lane change on my bumper.
00:04:28.000So it's obvious to me he singled me out.
00:04:30.000I'm thinking maybe I got a signal light out, a tail light out, something.
00:04:33.000He's, he's, he's picked me out of all this traffic out here, he's on my bumper.
00:04:37.000As I go to turn around into the right lane around a floor-moving vehicle with the officer right on my bumper, I notice several police cars coming on the on-ramp, getting ready to yield onto the interstate.
00:04:50.000I'm in the process of going into the right lane.
00:04:52.000I said, wait a minute, there's not going to be enough room in the right lane for everybody.
00:04:56.000So I flip from right signal turning right, flip back left signal back into the left lane.
00:05:01.000To allow them to come on, and he put the blue light on me.
00:05:04.000So I'm thinking, hey, some kind of lane change, something, he's getting ready to try to start.
00:05:08.000But what it is, is he's waiting on his backup.
00:05:11.000Soon as he sees the backup come up the ramp, he puts the light on me.
00:05:16.000I reach for my wallet, get my driver's license, and I realize I don't have it.
00:05:21.000So I'm still expecting the officer to come to my window.
00:05:24.000But no, this brilliant light comes on, and he's blaring orders to come across the PA system to get our hands up in the car.
00:05:31.000While I have my hands in the car, he says, now, with your left hand still in the air, take your right hand and take the keys out of the ignition and throw them out the window.
00:06:05.000Throws me in the back of a trooper car.
00:06:07.000And then they commit to do the same thing to my wife and child, and that's what really upsets me.
00:06:13.000And in the process of doing this to my wife and children, the passenger right side door is left open to the car.
00:06:20.000I'm in the car, in the back seat, talking to the trooper that's got me in his car, saying, sir, in the name of Jesus Christ, shut the door to the car.
00:07:24.000So then they moved my wife and child who had to witness the dog being shot within, I mean, 10 yards is probably an extremely long estimate.
00:08:45.000My wife Goes to Cooksville City Police Department and the Tennessee Highway Patrolman and my father and I take his car and go back to Exit 221 where I thought my wallet would have to be.
00:08:55.000Because we only stopped to get gas and the next time we stopped was at the incident.
00:09:47.000So en route, going back to exit 287, the cell phone rings, as my wife said, I know where your wallet is.
00:09:52.000Tennessee State Highway Patrol have it, and they're at exit 239 waiting on you, so you can reclaim it.
00:09:58.000Well, at this time, we've passed exit 239, so we have to turn back around, but not a long distance, probably 10 miles.
00:10:04.000We have two Tennessee State Patrolmen awaiting with my property.
00:10:08.000This guy took the time to pick up the money off the side of the road and everything, and they were You could see the remorse in their eyes.
00:10:14.000They weren't allowed to talk about it, but they knew that there was a big screw-up that occurred.
00:10:18.000And I signed the form, he gave my property back, and they told us, this is the first I heard of a citizen with a cell phone calling the robbery in.
00:10:26.000So we get back in the car and we head back to Cooksville, and we decide that this is not going to stand, that we're going to have to do something about it and file a report.
00:10:36.000So we spend the night directly across from the highway patrol at a Super 8 motel in Cooksville, Tennessee.
00:10:42.000During my wife's process of getting the reports filed, someone gave her the name of Miss Mary Jo Denton, who works with the Herald Citizen, which is the town paper of Cookville, and she decides she's interested in publishing this story.
00:10:59.000So we go there and interview and tell us basically what I've just told you, and she printed it and got the ball rolling for this media exposure of this craziness.
00:11:10.000Okay, James, uh, Smoke, let me just first just tell you a few things here, and I'm sorry to hear this happen to your dog, General Patton, correct?
00:11:20.000I have been to multiple homes, in fact, I've even thought about making a documentary about this.
00:11:25.000Here in Austin, Texas, and I've seen reports from around the country, because I scan a little local papers and news wires, SWAT teams have a policy of shooting any dog that is barking.
00:12:31.000They don't just have somebody on dog-killing detail on every SWAT raid.
00:12:35.000They routinely blow innocent people in half, little kids, their own officers, and that's in the back of the paper and isn't picked up nationally.
00:12:43.000You're just one story that just happened for some reason to get picked up nationally.
00:12:49.000Because you articulately told the story.
00:12:52.000But when they do this, they kill your animals, they kill your children.
00:12:59.000I feel like we were a sneeze or a body cramp away from death ourselves, yes, sir.
00:13:05.000Well, by a body cramp you mean... You know, when they had us in the position, if you started convulsing with your body and had a cramp, they'd have shot us.
00:13:16.000Well, look, I read reports every week where they shoot cops at these spot raids.
00:13:21.000It's just horrible, but Hollywood keeps promoting it, so everybody's got to be part of it now.
00:13:26.000And what was particularly appalling, Mr. Jones, was three separate occasions the trooper that had me in the back of his car walked over to the trigger man and he comes back grinning.
00:14:39.000Well, see, it was over to the side out of the headlights of the car, but the trooper that had me in the car would go over to the trigger man, and as he walked back in front of the car light, he had the biggest grin on his face.
00:15:11.000And the SWAT team, awesome SWAT team, went in, gunned him down, he didn't even shoot back, and they gave each other high fives, celebrating, like they just scored a touchdown, you know how they do it?
00:15:22.000Yeah, similar, very similar to what I'm talking about.
00:15:35.000Well, you know what, when they're old men, they're grandchilds, at a checkpoint, it happens to them, I hope nothing like that would ever happen.
00:15:42.000I hope nothing like this ever happens again.