The Knox County Sheriff’s Office’s decision to twice put a troubled deputy back on patrol puts taxpayers on the financial hook in a federal civil-rights lawsuit, records show.

Chief U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan has ruled Knox County and its taxpayers cannot escape the risk of damages for Deputy Brad Cox’s alleged use of unnecessary force in a July 2013 arrest.

Varlan is also refusing to grant Cox immunity, and taxpayers are now footing the bill for a private attorney to defend him in an appeal of Varlan’s ruling.

Attorney Patrick Looper filed the lawsuit at issue in Varlan’s ruling on behalf of Patty Jelsma, who was abruptly forced to the ground and handcuffed by Cox after Jelsma began filming him with her cellphone.

The encounter came just three months after Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones allowed Cox to return to patrol despite his role in the mistreatment of a teenage driver in 2011 known as the “dizzy bat” incident that cost taxpayers $38,000 in damages and in a 2008 assault on another person that also had netted Cox a demotion followed by a reinstatement.

Varlan cited Cox’s history of bad behavior and Jones’ failure to address it as cause for refusing to grant the county immunity in Jelsma’s case.

“Based on this evidence, a reasonable jury could find that Knox County disregarded a known or obvious consequence of reinstating Officer Cox, failed to respond to his prior incident and acted with deliberate indifference to plaintiff’s federally protected right against excessive force,” Varlan wrote.

Jelsma and Cox crossed paths when Jelsma’s mother accused her daughter of assaulting her at her Peterson Road home.

According to Varlan’s ruling, Jelsma was standing outside — and away from her mother — when Cox began interviewing her. Jelsma told Cox she intended to record the interview. The footage shows Cox initially responded, “That’s fine.”

Varlan noted Jelsma spoke calmly on the video and was attempting to focus the cellphone camera on Cox’s name plate when Cox suddenly grabbed her arm, pushed her to the ground and handcuffed her.

“There is no evidence she presented any danger to the officers or had a weapon of any kind,” Varlan wrote. “Moreover, while plaintiff may have been agitated, she is not heard yelling at Officer Cox on the video recording.

“Even when Officer Cox grabbed plaintiff’s arm, she simply asked him why she was being detained. Plaintiff does not appear to be attempting to escape or flee from Officer Cox.”

The judge ruled the video of the encounter supports Jelsma’s claim of excessive force by Cox.

“Taken together, a reasonable officer on the scene would not have feared for his safety or for that of others as a result of plaintiff’s behavior,” Varlan wrote.

Jelsma contends she was injured as a result. She seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. Charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and domestic assault filed against her by Cox were dismissed in September 2013.

Varlan’s ruling means the case can now go to a jury. However, the Knox County Law Director’s office has hired attorney Jerome Melson to appeal the ruling against Cox. The county has not filed a notice of appeal yet. Cox’s appeal will delay any trial.

In-cruiser video of the 2008 incident involving Cox shows Cox returned to the scene of a crash he had earlier investigated and almost immediately grabbed Nicholas Woods, forced him to the ground and handcuffed him.

It is not clear from the litigation what role Woods had in the initial crash or why Cox returned to confront him. The KCSO deemed Cox in the wrong but later allowed him to return to patrol, according to the records filed in U.S. District Court.

In October 2011, Cox was one of five deputies who forced 19-year-old driver Terry Wayne Phillips II to run around a bat held vertically until Phillips grew dizzy in order to avoid a ticket for drag racing. The “dizzy bat” encounter itself was not captured on video, but audio showed the deputies laughing at Phillips so hard some of them teared up.

Phillips, the nephew of a Knoxville Police Department officer, later filed a complaint.

Jones demoted all five deputies but later reinstated three of them, including Cox.

Cox is the son of KCSO Capt. Tom Cox, who headed up the agency’s version of an internal affairs unit at the time of the “dizzy bat” incident. The father recused himself from that internal probe.

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