By Bob Fowler
Knoxville News-Sentinel
CLINTON, Tenn. A former Clinton police officer charged with the aggravated statutory rape of a 17-year-old girl surrendered Thursday at the Anderson County Jail.
Randall Chisum, 29, of Maynardville was a member of the Clinton Police Department when he allegedly had sex with the girl early May 8, police said.
Confronted with the allegations the next afternoon, Chisum resigned. He had been a member of the police department since 2008, Police Chief Rick Scarbrough said.
“This is wrong on a lot of levels,” Scarbrough said of the incident. “When an officer violates the law, law enforcement has to police its own.”
The girl’s mother expressed concerns to Scarbrough on May 9 about an association between Chisum and her daughter, the police chief said.
By that evening, the girl had been interviewed by a detective and then taken to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, he said.
Search warrants were obtained May 10 for police to search Chisum’s vehicle and to photograph “markings on his (Chisum’s) body,” police said in a statement.
The vehicle was transported to a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime lab for analysis, authorities said.
District Attorney General Dave Clark at first gave Clinton police the go-ahead to investigate the allegations, but the TBI took over the case at that point.
Chisum was indicted Tuesday by an Anderson County grand jury and taken into custody Thursday by a TBI agent.
He posted a $25,000 bond and is to be arraigned July 8 in Anderson County Criminal Court.
Copyright 2011 Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.