THP Trooper Terminated for Unauthorized Database Searches

The state trooper at the center of a highway patrol probe has been terminated for running background checks without authorization.

Colonel Mike Walker says the officer will continue to be paid until he has exhausted all of his appeals. Walker says the department has enough evidence that points to misconduct to fire Ronnie Shirley, though the investigation is incomplete.

“It appears from the information we have thus far in the criminal investigation that Lt. Shirley illegally and unauthorized, accessed information from several different databases.”

In early July, Shirley’s access was cut off after being suspected of snooping on 182 individuals. 139 of those have been interviewed. Seven of them had asked Shirley to run their names. Of the 43 others, seven are dead and the rest are unreachable.

Safety Department commissioner Dave Mitchell says there’s no indication that the checks were politically motivated, as some originally suspected. He says, however, there are many more women than men on the list. The department is not releasing the names.

Mitchell says it appears Shirley acted alone.

“I really believe in my heart that this is an isolated problem, this is an isolated situation. But we’re going to do some follow up just to make sure.”

Mitchell says if anyone in the department asked Shirley to run the names, they, too, may be punished.

Some in the General Assembly are still calling for more information to be released. House Majority Leader Gary Odom wasn’t satisfied with Commissioner Mitchell’s determination that the background checks weren’t political. He says to make the investigation transparent, the names should be made public.

WEB EXTRA:

On June 6th, the IT division contacted the THP’s Office of Professional Responsibility regarding an employee’s driver license information being accessed through the state database. They asked who was doing the snooping. The next week, the department found that Lt. Shirley had been the one searching the name without authorization and that he had accessed the records of many other drivers as well.