A former Oak Ridge police officer is charged with aggravated statutory rape and official misconduct.
TBI began an investigation into Cassen Jackson-Garrison in August of 2015, after receiving a complaint that he was having an inappropriate relationship with a minor.
A man who was being held at the Anderson County Detention Facility reported the incident. He said that Jackson-Garrison was one of two officers who responded to his home on the domestic violence complaint that landed him in jail. He said that is when Jackson-Garrison met the teenage victim, who was his stepdaughter.
Investigators followed up on the complaint, and the information was confirmed by the girl's mother.
The Oak Ridge Police Department was notified of the allegations, and a day later, Jackson-Garrison was fired.
On May 3, a grand jury returned the indictments on Jackson-Garrison. he was arrested in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, and transported to the Anderson County Detention Center, where he is being held on a $25,000 bond.
Jackson-Garrison previously worked for the Knoxville Police Department. He started as a recruit in September 2009 at the Knoxville Police Academy, but resigned 17 months later, on Jan. 28, 2011, when he was still a probationary employee at the time. A KPD spokesperson said there was a complaint that Jackson-Harrison exposed himself to her, but the investigation stalled because the woman never responded to further attempts to contact her.
Before he became a police officer, Jackson-Garrison was a star football player for Knoxville's Central High School and Vanderbilt University. His success was likened to the plot of the movie "The Blind Side." In that movie, a white couple adopts a black teenager, who blossoms into a high school football star.
