Pulaski Police Officers Punished After Arresting Doctor En Route to Delivery

by Chris Cannon & Ben Hall

PULASKI, Tenn. – Two Pulaski Police officers involved with the arrest of Doctor Terry Wynn on May 5 have been suspended. Officer Chad Estes was suspended without pay for 30 calendar days. Sergeant Justin Young was suspended without pay for 7 calendar days.

“Simply put, they did not weigh the actions of Doctor Wynn versus the immediate medical attention that was needed for her patient,” Police Chief John Dickey told the Board of Mayor and Alderman.

The chief determined racism was not a factor and the officers did not break the law by arresting Doctor Wynn, but lacked discretion when assessing the severity of the situation.

The City of Pulaski called in an outside law firm to investigate the arrest.

Officer Chad Estes clocked Doctor Terry Wynn’s car going 46 in a 30-mile-per-hour zone on May 5. Wynn is an OB/GYN who was on the way to the hospital to deliver a baby.

She pulled over, and told Pulaski Officer Estes she needed to get to the hospital.

Police said she then left the scene and drove less than a mile to the hospital. Officer Estes followed Wynn and arrested her in the hospital parking lot.

“When she took off or sped away, and left him there, that constitutes under Tennessee law, evading arrest in a motor vehicle, which is a felony,” said Pulaski Police Chief John Dickey.

The arrest has sparked outrage in Pulaski and even led to a debate online about who was right.

“They didn’t look at her as a doctor. They looked at her as a woman of color, and they didn’t believe that she was a doctor,” said resident Georgia Paige-Peterson. “If they will do that to her, I can’t imagine what they have done to others.”

Immediately after the doctor’s arrest, a relative of the woman in labor called the Pulaski police chief and urged him to get the doctor out of jail so she could deliver the baby. Chief Dickey called the jail and had her released before she was officially booked….HERE IS MORE