A female trucker says Tennessee state trooper Sgt. Leon King ordered her into a secluded room at an Interstate 40 weigh station and propositioned her. Another says King caressed her hands, arm, and buttocks at the weigh station. King stayed on the job four months during the first investigation, reports The Tennessean. Days after the second incident, the patrol let him retire with his full pension. No investigation was done. The handling of the complaints about King, and two other cases involving troopers and women, raise questions about whether reforms in 2006 took root.
Officials responding to the complaints were the ones put in place after Gov. Phil Bredesen pledged to end the patrol’s history of cronyism and tolerating troopers’ misconduct. Highway Patrol officials say that the cases involve a few bad apples and that they have responded aggressively. King, who is an alderman in Brownsville, Tn., declined to comment. The truck drivers from the 2006 incidents at the weigh station say King scared and intimidated them, and they wished he had been prosecuted. He wasn’t.
Link: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070701/NEWS0201/707010400