It was a three-year trip, but Jonathan Curtis Sartin II is finally back where he’s always wanted to be – as a deputy at the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO). “I’m home,” he says.
Jon Sartin II
“I grew up with a lot of the guys who work here and they’re great. We always have a lot going on and I like to stay busy. This is where I want to spend my career and retire from. I love this place,” Sartin, 28, says. “This is where I always wanted to work as a deputy on patrol. This place is truly a family.”
His first law enforcement job was in 2017 as a corrections officer in the LCSO’s jail. But in 2018, the big burly deputy left for a patrol position at the Roane County Sheriff’s Office, then moved over to the Oliver Springs Police Department for a year before moving to the Kingston Police Department for almost a year.
But he never gave up on coming back home to Loudon, and in March 2022, he resumed his career at the LCSO. That desire is part and parcel of his late father, Jonathan, who died at age 48 on April 29, 2013, following emergency appendectomy surgery.
The elder Sartin was called a “legendary lawman” who worked at the Lenoir City Police Department (LCPD) for 30 years. He began working there in 1987 and served as a patrolman and as a K-9 officer. He was promoted to detective shortly afterward. Most everyone in Loudon County knew Sartin.
“He’s the reason why I am doing what I do. I grew up in a patrol car. I started riding with him when I was 11 or 12. He was always working. Always,” the son said. “But he was more than just a cop and detective. He was an all-in community man.”
His father died three weeks before his graduation from Lenoir City High School and two days after his senior prom.
“That was a very rough time for me. Took me a lot of time to be able to talk about it and accept it,” Sartin says today.
“I worried at first that people would hold me to a standard I was not ready for yet. I’m only in year four of my career. I hope in 30 years that I will have the drive he had up until the day he died. He didn’t want me to do this job. But it’s a calling and I learned that it takes patience, real passion and caring about what you do every day and caring for the people you serve.”
After a pause, he added, “…I want to put everything I have into this job. I love to help people out. I don’t care what the call is. Some calls are like solving a puzzle and every day is different. I’m all about community. I love walking through the schools and meeting the kids.”
Visiting schools is a trade-off, however. He says it’s the most dangerous part of the job. “I’ve had a lot of close calls working school traffic in the mornings and afternoons. I’ve almost been hit several times. I can’t count how many times. We have to be really careful at the schools. The parents are in a hurry to drop off their kids in the mornings and they’re not paying enough attention. Everybody is in a hurry.”
Having been reared in Loudon County, he says he’s lucky that, so far, he’s not had to arrest any of his friends from their school days.
“Not yet, but it could happen. I hope not.”
Much like patrol deputies and officers everywhere, he responds to calls involving shootings, stabbings, murders, car and vehicle accidents, some involving fatalities, making welfare checks and domestic violence and abuse reports. “You never know what’s coming your way shift to shift,” he says. “Two months ago, I responded to a domestic violence call in Philadelphia about a stabbing and I was the first one there. The victim was already dead.”
His refuge from the stress and memories is going home to wife Jennifer and their two mutts – Taz and Dolly. Jennifer works in Knoxville for the Regal Cinemas Corp.
“She’s helped me out a lot when I’m dealing with things. There are things I can’t talk about with her and things I can talk about, but truthfully, I try not to talk about it at home so I can get away from it.”
Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia.