Following shooting, law enforcement stresses caution

Warren County Sheriff Jackie Matheny is re-emphasizing to his officers the dangers which may be lurking around the corner when they are serving warrants in the wake of the deadly shooting in Monteagle on Thursday which claimed the life of a Grundy County deputy.
‘You should always be prepared yet it’s easy to lower your guard when you’ve done this for a while and nothing has happened,’ Matheny said Friday, a day after the tragic shooting of deputy Shane Tate. ‘I’ve been re-emphasizing safety and procedures today. We’ve all been trained, but it can’t hurt to go over things again.’
The killer, Kermit Bryson, took his own life after a day-long manhunt. Officers cornered him in the woods behind his girlfriend’s home and tried to talk him into peacefully surrendering. He survived the shot from his own gun initially, but died Friday morning at Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga.
According to Matheny, who took 14 officers to the neighboring county to help with the manhunt, Warren County Sheriff’s Department serves thousands of warrants each year. The warrant work includes a wide variety of legal papers ranging from minor civil papers to arrest warrants for dangerous criminals.
‘We’ve had some incidents here where our officers have run into armed individuals while trying to serve warrants,’ Matheny said. ‘We have been fortunate none of our officers have been killed or seriously injured but we have had to use our weapons and there have been some suspects wounded over the years.’
Matheny said the timing of serving warrants depends on several factors, including the seriousness of the offense, the elusiveness of the suspect, and information as to a suspect’s location. Deputy Tate and two other officers had gone to pick up Bryson at 3 a.m. in hopes of catching him by surprise.
‘We ask our officers to use their common sense about doing things at a decent hour and generally they will stop serving about 10 or 11 at night,’ Matheny said. ‘However, there are some factors that could change that. Sometimes a late hour of the night is the only time we can catch some people at a place. Or maybe we get a call saying a person who we have a warrant on is at a certain location. Then there may be runners and our best chance to catch them comes at night.’
As for numbers, most papers are served by a single officer. However, if it is feared the suspect may be dangerous or a threat to flee, more officers will be sent, but even increased numbers do not ensure security, Matheny said.
‘There were three that went to serve what was a violation of probation warrant up in Grundy County,’ Matheny said. ‘That was plenty, but you can see that anything can happen even when you’re serving something like a violation of probation warrant.’
Matheny, who was wounded in the line of duty as a patrolman when he chased a suspect into a house back in 1986, pointed out serving warrants is no more dangerous than walking up to a driver’s door during a traffic stop as there is always a chance the suspect is armed with bad intentions.
‘There have been a couple of cars that I’ve walk up on where I was telling myself that was it,’ Matheny said. ‘This can be a dangerous business seeing we’re dealing with some pretty bad characters from time to time.’
Matheny said the bottom line is stressing safety and proper procedure in an attempt to prevent a similar tragedy from happening here. An officer hasn’t died in the line of duty in Warren County since 1943.