What an interesting toolbox, Trooper Christopher Best takes to work. This is not about his Glock handgun or taser. Or pepper spray. Or the expandable baton. Or the shotgun and AR-15. Plus, handcuffs.
His toolbox of today as a member of the Knoxville District 1 THP Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) is full of what the THP calls “advanced tools and equipment” – a total station, drones, a GPS Rover, a 360-degree scanner, a Crash Data Retrieval (CDR) kit; laser measure, measuring tape, paint, battery powered tools, and hand tools plus forensics mapping and aerial pictures and drone footage of the accident and incident area.
If you’re not familiar with the CIRT teams, let’s solve that issue. It is a critical operational component of the THP statewide. Here is how the agency defines CIRT: “…These teams are responsible for assisting other THP members in the investigation and reconstruction of motor vehicle traffic crashes and incident scene documentation. The unit also assists federal, state and local agencies in motor vehicle traffic crash investigations and incident scene documentation.”
Trooper Chris Best
Inside the THP, you’ll find CIRT from border to border in the Volunteer State. The District 1 Team, headquartered in Knox County, covers 24 East Tennessee counties. As of 2024, the THP had approximately 1,080 troopers, not including administrative positions. The CIRT unit consists of four teams statewide, each covering two of the eight THP districts. A captain oversees command of the unit, an East Bureau lieutenant, a West Bureau lieutenant, and each team has a sergeant who serves as the team supervisor.
CIRT has a huge job, with its personnel numbers dwarfed by the trooper ranks. Its total personnel allotment is around 25 troopers, working out of the District 1 offices here and in Fall Branch on Team 1. Team 2 is from the Chattanooga and Cookeville districts; Team 3 is in Nashville and Lawrenceburg; and Team 4 is in Memphis and Jackson.
Our Knoxville CIRT team is led by Sgt. Philip Warren and his team includes Troopers Michael Heatherly, Chris Best, John Capps and Michael Draine. Remember Trooper Best’s name. He’s our Monday “Our Town Hero” today. He’s a 10-year veteran of CIRT who joined the THP in 2007.
Best, 45, Monroe County born and reared, still loves Sweetwater. He graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1998 and played varsity soccer. He and wife Lindsey, who works for a dermatology practice in Knoxville, have been married for 20 years. After graduation, he spent the next seven years working as a welder before joining THP. He was a road patrol trooper during his first seven years, covering Monroe, Blount and Sevier counties.
And here are two other family tidbits: his brother, Rodney, is a 15-year THP trooper working out of the McMinnville offices. His parents, Richard and Nancy,ATF are still living in Sweetwater. His father retired as a supervisor with TDOT, and Nancy worked for Kimberly-Clark.
Best and his teammates basically reconstruct scenes at serious accidents, often with fatalities and felonies involving multiple types of vehicles. Simplifying their mission, they work to answer the questions of how the accident happened and why. They do the same at the scenes of major crimes – homicides and other types, as requested by their partner agencies. Sgt. Warren says that courtroom testimony is “one of the more challenging things we do. We are considered experts at accident reconstruction, and giving expert testimony is hard and can be very technical.”
“Main vehicle crashes are the major areas where we work. We also work with the FBI and TBI on shootings and we’ve helped ATF Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with explosions and firearms,” Best explained, saying they also assist the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board). “A few years ago, we worked with the FBI when the military recruiting center in Chattanooga was shot up.”
CIRT also steps up to assist agencies searching for fugitives and missing persons, utilizing their drones and mapping capabilities.
There is a long list of interested parties in their reports. Here’s a partial list — the law enforcement community, obviously including THP, as well as local police and sheriffs’ offices, District Attorney Generals to aid in their investigations, trucking companies, insurance companies, families involved in the accidents and incidents, and even the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT). “They look at road conditions and safety issues that could have come into play,” Best said. “Property owners get copies of our work, even vehicle manufacturers and the news media.”
Their work requires an understanding and knowledge of physics and algebra. It’s akin to solving complicated puzzles, Best says. “How in the world did the vehicle end up there? How’d this happen? We have to have a better understanding of what caused the accident, and we need lots of details for that – not opinions. And contrary to what people think, most bad accidents occur on roads, not on our Interstate highways. These accident scenes can be big areas, and we have to get all of the details we can get.”
Here’s what happens: “We get a call requesting assistance and one of us responds to the scene. We talk to the scene supervisor to learn what we can about what happened, what’s going on? We walk the crash scene and observe everything around us. Then we start documenting the accident – photos, GPS information, making notes about the roadway and the vehicle with pictures and video from the drone, measuring everything, checking the braking marks before and after the impacts and making sure we have not missed anything. We check the weather too.”
CIRT also helps train rangers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on these investigative techniques after vehicle crashes and other incidents when someone has lost their life. They also help train local and area law enforcement officers in both basic and advanced crash reconstruction classes and always enjoy being invited and teaching students in the state’s STEM schools.
CIRT is a busy place, and away from work, Best has two sports that drain his stress – golf and snowboarding. If you know golf, you know that someone with a USGA-certified handicap of 9.2 is a player, as they say. Wife Lindsey is in the process of learning golf, he says. They love to hit the slopes in Montana skiing.
Sgt. Warren, the Team 1 leader, talks about Best: “He’s very committed to the people he serves. We worked on patrol together, and he’s really aware of those we help and how things affect the communities. He also enjoys being involved in the education work we do. He loves every aspect of this job.”
Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia. If you have someone you think we should consider featuring, please email him at the link with his name or text him at 865-659-3562.
Our Town Hero is sponsored by Aubrey’s Restaurants.
