Were these officers caught on camera operating without a license?
Hi, I’m Daniel Wagner from the Patriot Punk Network, giving you the latest Tennessee news in 3 minutes or less.
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Round 1
In Mt. Juliet, two alleged identity‑theft tourists found out the hard way that this is not the place to run your multistate scam.
The staff at a Verizon retailer flagged a pair of guys trying to make fake purchases and watched them bolt.
Then, officers used the city’s Guardian Shield license plate readers to track their rental car down the road at a Dollar General
Inside were a 25‑year‑old from Florida and a 43‑year‑old from Maryland, and that’s where things really start to spiral.
Police say the older suspect tried to destroy evidence on the spot, ripping up paperwork and receipts and stuffing them into a cup of soda, while the younger one gave officers his brother’s name instead of his own.
A closer look turned up multiple bogus IDs and credit cards with real victims’ info but swapped‑out photos, plus a bag of Fanta Nails in the vehicle.
The younger suspect also had Suboxone tucked somewhere in or around his private area.
Now their *new* identity is all of these charges.
Mt. Juliet PD says the duo is tied to identity‑theft cases spanning Maryland, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and across Tennessee.
And to think, they spent all that effort stealing new identities, and Mt. Juliet still managed to give them the only ones that stick: ‘Defendant One’ and ‘Defendant Two.
Round 2
In Chattanooga, After a man took someone’s phone and ran from officers several times, one of them got creative and, in a last ditch effort, comically tried to "reel" him in… pretending as though he'd caught a fish.
Miraculously, it worked and the man returned the phone, and when telling the story on their facebook page, they characterized it as "a successful catch and release."
Which is all well and good, but I have a few followup questions:
Did the officer have a fishing license?
Did he stay within the legal weight limit?
Did he exceed his bag limit for the evening?
And, perhaps most importantly, does the TWRA write tickets for landing suspects out of season?
That's 2 rounds down and 1 to go. What questions do you have for Officer Angler?
Round 3
Tennessee’s HB1704/SB1779 has now cleared both chambers and is headed to Governor Bill Lee’s desk.
The bill creates a new Class A misdemeanor for non‑citizens who already have a final federal order of removal under 8 U.S.C. 1227, then intentionally stay in Tennessee more than 90 days after that order becomes final.
Another section—only triggered if federal law or the Supreme Court later lets states go further—would make it a crime for someone who has been denied admission, deported, or removed from the U.S. to intentionally enter or attempt to enter Tennessee again without the required federal permission.
The bill also pauses any state criminal case until the person has exhausted all federal appeals on that removal order.
Now, some coverage has boiled all of that down to “making it illegal to be illegal.”
That’s cute, but it’s like describing the tax code as “making it illegal to be broke”—technically punchy, functionally useless.
When you skip the details about final orders, 90‑day clocks, and federal preemption triggers, you’re not doing journalism; you’re just workshopping bumper stickers.
That was your Tennessee news roundup.
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