MOSCOW, Tenn. — It`s the best kept secret in town: the identity of the Moscow Police Officer who shot a man last April.
Details involving the shooting have been vague.
Everything about the case has remained off limits to the public, even the officer`s name.
WREG talked to Mark Luellen, the man who was shot by the officer.
When we found him he was still nursing his wounds and still wondering why the officer shot him.
“He had shot me and everything. I didn’t have no other defense than to get the hell away from over there,” said Luellen.
A Moscow City Cop said Luellen tried to run over him in April when he tried to take Luellen to jail on an outstanding warrant.
“I just went to get a pack of cigarettes and he said I had a warrant and I went to show him the paperwork I had in my car,” explained Luellen.
Luellen said the paperwork proved there wasn’t a warrant but the officer pepper sprayed and shot him before he could show it.
“I wasn’t trying to fight him but I was trying to get the papers to show him I was relieved. I had did that time so that’s where all that comes from. He just got pistol happy,” said Luellen.
WREG tried to find out if Luellen’s “pistol happy” claims were true or if this was indeed a justified shooting by the officer involved.
It’s been 3 months since the shooting and the public still doesn’t know.
Investigators never arrested Luellen for the alleged assault and the city`s police department hasn’t released any information about the officer.
“The news media has been told to call Mike Dunavant’s office. He’s in Somerville. Talk to him,” said Mayor Gary Howell from Moscow, TN
A WREG reporter asked the mayor if he thought people needed to at least know the officer’s name.
“I’m not giving anything because I was told not to, period,” he responded.
In Memphis and Shelby County when an officer shoots someone their names are released before investigations are complete.
Their work history is also made available.
In California, when San Francisco tried to withhold an officer’s name after a shooting, a federal judge ruled police had to divulge it.
WREG sent a string of emails to Moscow requesting the information through the Tennessee Open Records Act and even made three trips to City Hall and still didn’t get the officer’s name.
“Send me a federal judge that tells me to. Right now, my district attorney is telling me to tell you to contact him- so contact him,” said Howell.
WREG tried to do that.
We went by Dunavant`s Somerville office.
His secretary told us he wasn’t in.
We emailed him an Open Records request,but he never even responded.
When we finally caught up with him on the phone he said the officer`s name was part of the investigation and that’s why he wont let the city release it.
He said it’s Tennessee law.
“Law enforcement across the state has now taken that appeals court ruling and has said we can keep anything secret we want,” said Deborah Fisher with the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.
Tennessee Coalition for Open Government said this has become a disturbing trend across Tennessee.
“This affects the public because it affects what they will be able to know about what their police departments are doing,” said Fisher.
In the meantime, the man shot by investigators and his family wait for answers.
“They never came back over here. I ain’t heard nothing from them,” said Luellen.
Luellen and his family said the city is protecting the officer because the shooting wasn’t justified.
“In the wars I was in if we had a prisoner, we didn’t need to shoot him. We didn’t shoot him when I was in Vietnam,” said Luellen.
WREG eventually obtained the officer`s name through other sources.
His name was Eric Austin.
He’s a former Shelby County Sheriff Reserve Deputy and had been on the job in Moscow just 5 weeks when the shooting happened.
The state approved a training waiver for him but the certification wasn’t finalized until April 28, more than a week after he shot Luellen.
