Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Campbell County, TN – A Tennessee state trooper — who was fired for sexually assaulting an innocent mother and stalking her — is being sued by that mother, Patricia Aileen Wilson. Showing just how corrupt the system is, despite being fired, former trooper Isaiah Lloyd’s defense bill is being paid for by the taxpayers, and the Tennessee Attorney General’s office is standing by their decision to do so.
“Former Tennessee Highway Patrol Trooper Isaiah Lloyd was employed by the state at the time of the traffic stops involving Ms. Wilson and therefore, the Attorney General’s Office may continue to represent him even though he is no longer employed with the State,” Samantha Fisher, spokeswoman for Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III, said.
What makes this case especially egregious is the fact that this trooper’s misdeeds were captured on video and are indisputable. He was seen putting his hands inside Wilson’s shorts as he groped her and then seen stalking her, pulling her over again, despite knowing she had not committed a crime. In spite of the mountain of evidence against him, the state still finds it necessary to use state funds to fight against his victim.
In the first stop, Lloyd was seen bending Wilson over the hood of his car as he creepily moved in from behind her, putting his face next to her neck. This is most assuredly not protocol. As he gropes the innocent mother, he then reaches his hands inside her shorts, in a move prosecutors are calling legally suspect.
The trooper’s Dash Cam then shows him parking his vehicle across the street from the woman’s house three hours later, and pulling her over again as she returned home—this time he claimed to cite another minor infraction he had not noticed earlier, but the battery on his microphone conveniently “died” during the encounter.
Wilson has since filed a lawsuit against State Trooper Isaiah Lloyd, claiming that he conducted a search without legal justification, he groped her during the search, and he then took note of where she lived and stationed himself nearby with the intention of pulling her over for another minor infraction.
When Lloyd pulled Wilson’s small truck over on the side of a busy interstate, he informed her that he had pulled over for failing to wear a seat belt. While that could have easily been handled by Lloyd issuing a citation, he chose to take it a step further. He asked Wilson if she was taking any prescription medications.
“No drugs, no alcohol, nothing,” Wilson replied.
Even though Wilson was fully complying with Lloyd’s questions—all while her mom was present in the passenger seat of her truck—and Lloyd did not make any mention during or after the stop that he believed she was armed or posed a threat in any way, he ordered her to get out of the vehicle.
Lloyd then told Wilson to put her hands on the hood of his police cruiser and he began to touch her. He placed his hands inside her waistband and then asked her to lift her shirt. He ran his hands over her hips and put his fingers inside her shorts.
The Knoxville News Sentinel noted that while a Supreme Court ruling from 1968 allows police officers to “pat down” a suspect on the outside of their clothing if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the suspect is armed, the person is still “forbidden from an invasive search inside a person’s clothing without either a warrant or probable cause of a crime.”
In this case, Lloyd had no reason to believe Wilson was armed, and even if she was, he should not have inserted his hands under the waistband of her shorts. In her lawsuit, Wilson claimed that Lloyd also groped her buttocks and genital area, which is below the picture captured by the dash camera.
Lloyd asked Wilson if she had any drugs in her bra, and she pulled her bra away from her breasts and shook it back and forth to show that she was not hiding any drugs. He then told Wilson to follow his finger with her eyes, and he spent more than one minute dragging it from back and forth in front of her face.
While Lloyd’s attorney insisted that he only conducted the search because Wilson told him she was on Ambien, the Dash Cam footage of the encounter makes it clear that it was not until after Lloyd had conducted the search that he asked Wilson about the prescription medications she was taking.
Wilson said she occasionally took a prescription sleep medication, but she was not familiar with the name. When Lloyd asked if it was Ambien, she agreed. However, it is not clear why a prescription sleep medication Wilson takes occasionally has any relevance to why she chose not to wear a seat belt that day, or why Lloyd seemed so intent on linking her to drug use.
“We have to stop meeting like this.”
Lloyd finally issued Wilson a citation and let her go. But three hours later, his Dash Cam shows that he was sitting on the side of the road, across the street from the residence listed on her driver’s license.
When Wilson passed Lloyd’s cruiser on her way home, he immediately pulled out into traffic and initiated a stop. One significant difference that occurred between the first and second stop was that on the second, Lloyd’s microphone conveniently “died” and there is no audio.
In her lawsuit, Wilson said Lloyd approached her vehicle and said, “We have to stop meeting like this,” before claiming that he pulled her over because the window tint on her truck was too dark—an infraction he also conveniently missed during the first stop.
Lloyd did not issue a citation during the second stop, but his overall treatment of Wilson should have caused serious concern and led to an investigation into his conduct. But this never happened and he wasn’t even fired until last October, despite a rap sheet a mile long.
Eighth Judicial District Attorney General Jared Effler initiated a review of the incident, and concluded that “Trooper Lloyd’s actions were inconsistent with his training and Tennessee Department of Safety general orders.”
In a ridiculous move, Lloyd is blaming the sexual assault and stalking on his “training.”
“I was under the impression you could pat anybody down,” Lloyd said in a deposition. “That’s how I was trained initially.”
Wilson’s attorney, Herbert S. Moncier asked, “But you learned differently?”
“Yes, sir,” Lloyd answered. “You’re supposed to ask them and if you don’t visually see a reason … don’t see a bulge or reason to give you reasonable suspicion to do so, then there is really nothing you can really do is my understanding from it.”
Moncier pressed, “Now, I want you to articulate the reasons that you had to believe that (Wilson) was armed and dangerous for you to conduct a frisk for weapons.”
“I didn’t have any,” Lloyd answered.
In reality, it appeared Lloyd was simply preying on Wilson.
Unsurprisingly, Tennessee Highway Patrol Col. Tracy Trott doesn’t see it that way and released a statement last year showing the department’s support for Lloyd’s actions and claiming that he had cause to search Wilson at the time.
“After careful consideration and review, the Tennessee Highway Patrol Command Staff has advised me that Trooper Isaiah Lloyd conducted this traffic stop in a professional manner in an effort to protect the motoring public,” Trott said.
As you watch the video below, remember that this could be your wife or your daughter who is being sexually assaulted in such a way that the department deems “professional.”