Mayor Dennis Phillips said Tuesday he intends to ask City Attorney Mike Billingsley to brief the Board of Mayor and Aldermen next week on the situation involving Officer Bryan Carter. Carter, an 11-year veteran with the Kingsport Police Department, was suspended three days without pay in February after a TBI probe of Carter’s traffic stop of two Mexican citizens in which he kept money seized from the suspects. In February 2003, it was found that Carter had not turned in a gun, three ammunition clips and a bottle of Absolut vodka to the evidence unit. The items were seized 11 months prior while Carter was moonlighting as a security officer at Coconuts nightclub. In April 2005, police called Carter at his home because he had failed to turn in money seized during an arrest the previous evening. For each incident, Carter was suspended for eight hours without pay.
Modern Medicine is reporting that the Appalachian Mountains of northeastern Tennessee around Johnson City remain a hot spot for the fungal infection blastomycosis, according to study findings published in the April issue of the journal Chest. Researchers found that the disease has remained clinically constant over two study periods, and that it remains endemic to the region with more than half of all cases from 1996 to 2005 occurring in Washington and Unicoi counties. So, next time you say you have an itch to get out of town, you just might mean it.
In other area news, the cause of a fire on Swadley Road in Johnson City is still under investigation, but one theory is that marijuana grow lamps may have sparked the blaze. Republican members of the Sullivan County Election Commission named Sullivan County Republican Party Chairman Jason Booher on Tuesday to the post of Sullivan County administrator of elections, and 24 projects in Washington, Carter and Unicoi counties made the list of around 450 state transportation projects released Tuesday by Gov. Phil Bredesen that will receive federal stimulus funds.
All that and more on today’s edition of the Daiies.
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