Robin SmithJust last week, the public saw two stories that had individuals confronted with family members who chose not to respect personal and private property. Those two individuals made completely different decisions on how to deal with their relatives, and the outcomes should inform us all.
First, a great-grandmother filed charges against her 24-year-old grandson after obvious discrepancies in her savings and checking accounts appeared. Following the death of her husband in March 2013, a Hamilton County woman added her great-grandson to her financial accounts to assist her after her loss.
The young Harrison man is accused of helping himself to $157,990.60 from her savings and $31,000 from her checking account. The Aug. 23 Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office booking report records the charges as “willful abuse/neglect of an impaired adult.” This man is set to appear in court before Judge Clarence Shattuck this week.
On Aug, 25, a “domestic call” in Blount County ended initially with no arrest. Law enforcement officers responded to the home of a father who “did not want to place charges against his son,” leaving the sheriff’s officers “no reason without any sign of physical injury to take him into custody,” according to Blount County Sheriff James Berrong.
Sheriff Berrong, like most others, expressed his wishes to “turn back the clock and erase this” in his public remarks following the second call to the same address later in the afternoon. That call resulted in the shooting death of Maryville Police Officer Kevin Moats, the father of three children and a nine-year law enforcement officer.