The mean, demeaning, degrading and disgusting world of “Crimes Against Children” can take one’s breath away and make your skin crawl. Emotions personified. Anger. Outrage. Caring. Empathy. Healing. Tears.

The soul bruises and those bruises pile up. Redemption comes into play, too. Along with public servant work, a servant must be schooled in the world of forensics, possessing a heart to manage compassion for victims and fairness and justice for the abusers.

Chris Luethge

That’s the law enforcement world in which Det. Chris “Lucky” Luethge (LOOT-yuh) lives in his day-to-day profession at the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO). Most can’t correctly pronounce his last name, so many just call him “Lucky.” He is a native son of Clinton, born there 53 years ago, reared and educated there.

Luethge, in his 21st year in law enforcement, says around 99% of his caseload focuses on what happens to children, 90% sex crimes, the rest are abuse and neglect. “I keep some cases open longer on purpose due to the nature of the crimes. I would say on average I have anywhere between 40 to 50 cases I’m juggling at any given time.”

He is one of eight detectives in Sheriff Russell Barker’s Criminal Investigations Division (CID), led by Lt. James Crowley. The crimes committed against children run the gamut, from commercial sexual exploitation, parental sexual exploitation, physical and emotional abuse, trafficking, neglect, bullying, online exploitation to Shaken Baby Syndrome and what is called “institutional abuse” – abuse or neglect in any facility for children, including, but not limited to, group homes, residential, public or private schools, hospitals, detention and treatment facilities, family foster care homes, group day care centers, churches and family day care homes.

Welcome to Lucky’s world. For what he does and why and how, he’s this week’s “Our Town Hero.”

In 2023, a major honor came his way – the First Responder of the Year by OPAW (Operation Angel Wing) in Oak Ridge. It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit behavioral wellness organization that provides clinical and non-clinical trauma support. It serves veterans, active military, first responders, and their families. OPAW also offers camping opportunities. Luethge also has been a crisis intervention trainer for various groups.

He is also a graduate of the prestigious National Forensic Academy (NFA) in Oak Ridge. It is “the” intensive 10-week training program for law enforcement officers, operating through the University of Tennessee’s Law Enforcement Innovation Center (LEIC). It provides practical, hands-on instruction in crime scene investigation, evidence collection, and forensic reconstruction. Much of his job deals with the online criminal element affecting children and is ACSO’s Internet Crimes Against Children investigator.

Last week, off and on, Luethge even made time for our questions while he was in a week-long training class in Hoover, AL. It was presented by the U.S. Secret Service’s National Computer Forensics Institute. His class was about “Mobile Device Examiners.”

His interest in his work, he says, may have partly began when his mother died of colon cancer in 1982 when he was just 9. “I know at that age losing Mom was real-life trauma for me, and the years after that I developed a mindset that I wanted to help people and counsel kids dealing with things like this,” he says.

Prior to his first police job as an ACSO Corrections Office in 2005, he spent six years working at what was then the Peninsula Behavioral Health Center. He was a staff program counselor for at-risk children. “That job gave me a very unique perspective when I came into law enforcement,” he said. “In The Villages Program I saw and learned how to work with kids suffering from the devastating effects of abuse, especially the mental health aspects. I worked with boys mainly, some sexually abused by their mothers and others by their fathers.”

His work then and now demands emotional detachment from the cases and crimes. “Working at The Village honed me for that, remaining neutral with the children, listening, not being judgmental, and how to remain neutral and still be caring. You have to know yourself before you interact with these people. We had kids who had murdered their pets. Almost unbelievable. My faith taught me that everyone can experience redemption and I believed it and it helped me deal with all of this.”

After less than a year at ACSO, he paid his way through the Cleveland State Police Academy and graduated No. 1 in his 2006 class. He then worked for two years at the LaFollette Police Department under Sheriff Ben Baird and then joined Oak Ridge in 2008. He was there for 14 years until moving over to the ACSO to work for Barker – and for less pay.

He had been working the Crimes Against Children detective beat for four years when he left Oak Ridge in 2022. Back at ACSO, he became an SRO (School Resource Officer) at Anderson County High. “That was my dream job. It’s like I was spiritually led to be at ACHS again. It was a God move. That was the season the football team won state and I escorted the team to Chattanooga.”

Here are a few more tidbits about Luethge:

  • Luethge had a long background in competitive swimming and founded the first ACSO swim team in 1998, coaching it for four years.
  • Proving you are never too old to learn, he is still working to complete his undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Phoenix and plans on earning a master’s degree too. “This could really help me in my afterlife from this job if I want to become a consultant,” he says. He’s planning on working for at least 10 more years, too.
  • He once majored in jazz guitar in college and enjoys music, inside and outside of church.

For the average citizen, it’s almost impossible to learn of and comprehend the horrors of what he sees adults do and have done to children – right there in his hometown and county. Mothers and fathers prostitute their children – both sexes – in exchange for heroin, meth, fentanyl and other drugs or to cover their rent payments. In another case, a 19-year-old big brother raped his 5-year-old sister.

He says between 80-85% of the child sex crimes begin or have an online social media connection these days through a variety of apps (applications/computer software) that too many parents know nothing about and should quickly become familiar with now before it’s too late and watch and learn what your children are doing online.

“Young kids are easily taken advantage of and manipulated by many online predators (many from overseas) who convince them into taking pictures of themselves or of one another and sending them and posting them on these apps,” Luethge says. “We have kids 7 and 8 years old who are smart on computers and phones doing these, many on the TikTok gateway app. Trust me – they know all about social media and how it works at young ages.”

Remember the term “soul bruises?” That’s how Luethge describes what has happened to him and still happens because of his work.

“I have had experiences I will never forget and the constant day in and day out work I do creates these bruises that become part of my soul. It’s a wounding, deep down, and I have to have balance and I do. My little farm, the animals, my family, my faith, the music and church. And my friends, the sheriff and his support and The Lord. But the soul bruises will always be there. Always. You can’t see these bruises. But I sure feel‘em.”

Tom King is a weekly contributor to KnoxTNToday, where he writes the column Our Town Hero, honoring the service of our first responders. If you have someone you think we should consider featuring, please email Tom using the link with his name or text him at 865-659-3562. Enjoyed this article?

Read more Our Town Hero columns by Tom King, sponsored by Aubrey’s Restaurants.

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