Oak Ridge Today

Sheriff’s Department announces enforcement partnerships to reduce traffic fatalities

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The Anderson County Sheriff’s Department and local law enforcement agencies have announced a partnership designed to reduce traffic fatalities in East Tennessee.

In a Friday press conference at the Knoxville office of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, Steve Dillard, East Tennessee Law Enforcement Liaison Officer for the Governor’s Highway Safety Office, reported an increase in fatalities last year in four East Tennessee counties: Anderson, Blount, Campbell, and Sevier. During the last five years, Anderson County alone has averaged 11 fatal crashes per year, with 13 fatal crashes in 2012, a press release said.

In response, Dillard and GHSO Director Kendall Poole outlined traffic safety activities for the next six months in the four counties. Authorities will focus on impaired and distracted drivers, and those violating speed limit and seatbelt laws. [Read more…]

Sheriff’s Department investigates Lake City fire

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Information from WYSH Radio

Anderson County investigators are looking into the cause of a fire that destroyed a home on Old Fraterville Hollow Road near Lake City Monday night.

The home’s owner, Kenneth Duncan, had been allowing his sons to stay at the home when the fire broke out Monday night. The two sons—Eddie and Anthony Duncan—along with a woman staying at the house with them had been visiting neighbors when one sibling saw an orange glow coming from the direction of the house.

[Read more…]

Meth lab bust includes 90 pounds of ammonia, 700 coffee filters, acid, fuel

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Anderson County authorities serving a warrant at a mobile home on Becks Lane in Claxton on Monday found an alleged methamphetamine laboratory that included 90 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, 700 coffee filters, two gallons of muriatic acid, and more than a gallon of Coleman fuel, as well as a white substance that tested positive for meth, records said.

Ingredients and equipment that could be used to make meth were scattered around the home, including in a shed near the back of the home, in a 1996 Buick, and under a motor home in the driveway, according to an Anderson County Sheriff’s Department report. Authorities detected the “distinct odor” of anhydrous ammonia at several places near the home, Anderson County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Jason D. Leach said in the report.

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TDOT to spend $1.2 million to make Highway 116 safer

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Information from WYSH Radio

The Tennessee Department of Transportation will spend more than $1.2 million to make safety improvements on Highway 116, also known as New River Highway, in Anderson County’s Briceville community.

After a string of accidents, including some fatalities, on the rural road, local officials began trying to find ways to prevent them in the future and those efforts paid off last August when a team of TDOT officials joined Anderson County commissioners Tim Isbel and Zach Bates, members of the Briceville Volunteer Fire Department, and deputies from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department on a tour of the 11-mile stretch of road from Frost Bottom to the Campbell County line.

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Powell man charged with attempted murder in brother’s shooting

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Jamie Lynn Lowe

Jamie Lynn Lowe

Note: This story was updated at 9:54 a.m.

A Powell man has been charged with attempted second-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of his brother on Johnson Gap Road on Feb. 1, authorities said.

Jamie Lynn Lowe, 30, of Powell, was arrested Tuesday at a home on Mehaffey Road in Claxton on a fugitive from justice warrant for a parole violation in Michigan, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department said in a Thursday morning press release. Warrants for the new charges were served at the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton on Wednesday.

Lowe’s brother, Jeffery Allen Lowe, 28, was flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center with a potentially life-threatening wound after the Feb. 1 shooting at their mother’s home on Johnson Gap Road near Clinton, authorities said.

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Stolen Knox County school bus found in Anderson County

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A school bus reported stolen in Knox County this morning was soon found in Anderson County, authorities said.

Bus 117 appears to have been stolen from its owner’s home on Prosser Road, Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk said.

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Sheriff: Beer ‘sting’ nets four businesses

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Four businesses sold beer to an underage person during a compliance check at 19 local businesses last week, Anderson County Sheriff Paul White said in a Tuesday afternoon press release.

The Anderson County Sheriff’s Department conducted the compliance checks at local businesses that sell beer on Wednesday, Feb. 13, with help from Allies for Substance Abuse Prevention of Anderson County, or ASAP, a press release said.

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Report: Heroin sold, two arrests made near Claxton Elementary

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Note: This story was last updated at 10:39 a.m. Feb. 5

Using a confidential source, authorities were able to buy heroin three times from a Powell home, and when they served a search warrant Thursday morning, they found about one ounce of the powerful drug inside the house, Anderson County Sheriff’s Department incident reports said.

The home is on Coconut Lane, about 1,000 feet from Claxton Elementary School.

The reports said the Sheriff’s Department, including Investigator Ryan T. Williams, were able to use the confidential source to make three separate purchases of heroin last week from Joe Fentress Butler, 28, of 156 Coconut Lane. Two of the purchases were for $25 worth of heroin and one was for $100, the reports said.

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Man has possible life-threatening injury after Friday shooting

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A 28-year-old man was flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center with a potentially life-threatening wound after a Friday morning shooting on Johnson Gap Road in Anderson County, authorities said.

The condition of Jeffery Allen Lowe was not available, Anderson County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Mark Lucas said in a brief statement Friday afternoon.

The shooting occurred at about 10:42 a.m. Friday at 154 Johnson Gap Road, and Lowe was flown to the UT hospital by a Lifestar helicopter, Lucas said.

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Court records: Husband admits strangling pregnant wife

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A Briceville man who claimed to be experiencing withdrawal symptoms admitted strangling his pregnant wife during an argument on Tennessee Hollow Lane on Wednesday, allegedly making her unable to breathe at times and causing her to almost black out, authorities said.

The argument allegedly started at about 9:45 a.m. Wednesday when the woman “called in to work,” according to an affidavit filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court.

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WYSH: Inmate’s house destroyed by fire

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Information from WYSH Radio in Clinton

Anderson County investigators are probing the cause of a suspicious Monday night fire that destroyed the house of a man currently serving time in prison on child abuse charges.

The fire at the home on Half Moon Road was reported at around 8 p.m. Monday and extinguished by the Marlow Volunteer Fire Department, which told Anderson County Sheriff’s Department deputies that the house was a total loss.

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WYSH: Medford mobile home catches fire

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Information from WYSH Radio in Clinton

A mobile home in Medford was damaged by a fire early Sunday morning.

The mobile home on Beets Valley Road had been unoccupied for at least three years, according to a report filed by the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department, and had no power running to it.

[Read more…]