Former Rutherford County Sheriff's Department Detective Jim Tramel has officially announced his candidacy for Sheriff. You may recall in July of 2013, Tramel told WGNS News that he was called into Sheriff Arnold's office on June 6th and asked if he planned on running against him in 2014? Tramel told us the sheriff said something like, "You'll be taking food off my table" and Tramel was fired. Tramel then filed a lawsuit in a Nashville federal court room for unspecified damages. Deposition was heard in regards to that case earlier this year. 

Past news report about incident involving Detective Tramel at the Sheriff's Office - HERE

Tramel sent WGNS the following information
about his run for Sheriff of Rutherford County on Friday (Un-Edited):

I am announcing my candidacy for sheriff and will be running as a conservative independent. I chose to run as a independent as I believe the needs of the community are to come before the interest of some political party. As we all have witnessed, the will of the people is often ignored by the establishment of the political parties, which benefits few at the expense of many. In the past few months, we have witnessed unprecedented civil rights violations by government agencies with the targeting of certain groups that dared to defend the rights of citizens afforded by the constitution. With that being said, I believe in limited government that serves the community in a responsible and efficient manner. After all elected officials are servants of the people they serve, a point that is lost on most office holders today.                                                             

I moved to Rutherford County in the fall of 1986 to attend MTSU to pursue a degree in Criminal Justice Administration. While at MTSU, I met my future wife, Susie, and decided to make Rutherford County my home. I graduated in the spring of 1992 with a Bachelors Degree in CJA and with minors in Psychology and Sociology. After graduating from MTSU, Susie and I married and now have two wonderful kids Addie Belle and Walton. For the last thirteen years, Susie and I have operated a family run business Valleygrower's and Valleygrower's Too.

I began my career in 1997 after being hired by the Rutherford Sheriff's Office assigned to the patrol division. In 1998, I was promoted to the School Resource Officer program assigned to Smyrna Middle and Lascassas Elementary where I met and served many great people. As an SRO, I found the community to be full of support and a great resource in assisting me in my duties at the schools. My experience in that capacity underscored my belief in the value of community policing and made me want to be the best I could be for those that put their faith and trust in me.

In 2006, I was promoted to the Criminal Investigations Divison assigned to Domestic Violence and later to General Detectives. I had the privilege of working many cases including a 25 year old cold case, Lynn Orrand, with Detective Mark Dinardo. As result of many hours of hard work, the case was cleared with the arrest of three individuals and ended with all three being found guilty of the murder by a jury. The gratitude of the victim's family made the hard work and time expended worth every minute of our effort during this endeavor.

I hope one can see that my experience in law enforcement sets me apart from the rest of the candidates. My experience has been that you get back more from the community than you put in when you serve the interest of the community, not the interest of a certain political party, special groups or "friends". In all the years of doing my job, I never asked a victim as to what party they voted for because it did not matter. I put 100 percent effort in every case I worked. I will work hard to protect and defend your constitutional rights which all americans are entitled too. I appreciate all of the support I have received from employee's at the RCSO and from the residents of Rutherford County to help me continue on with my endeavor as being your next Sheriff. Help me eliminate politics out of law enforcement once and for all.