Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Tennessee Star, spoke with a retired Virginia patrol officer about the 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged MS-13 gang member and citizen of El Salvador who was deported last month under President Donald Trump, on Tuesday’s edition of his radio talk show.
Last week, The Star was the first to report that Abrego Garcia was suspected of being engaged in human trafficking by Tennessee Highway Patrol officers who detained him during a 2022 traffic stop on I-40 in Putnam County; however, was let go at the time after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) requested that the state officers release him and the eight other passengers in the vehicle.
During the nearly two-hour traffic stop, Abrego Garcia reportedly provided an expired Maryland temporary driver’s license and stated that he was transporting the other passengers from Texas to Maryland – with a stop in St. Louis. The passengers did not have luggage, were unable to communicate in English, and seemed confused or uncooperative, which raised suspicion of human trafficking.
On Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, a caller by the name of Jeff who is a retired Virginia patrol officer with 27 years of law enforcement experience in a local jurisdiction said the Tennessee Highway Patrol officers acted appropriately to let Abrego Garcia go under the circumstances; however, raised concerns with the lack of follow-up of Garcia or any of the passengers after the stop.
The retired patrol officer said he believes the “real decision” to release Abrego Garcia came from high-level federal coordination and was likely tied to a larger investigation or confidential informant network.
The officer said he speculates the FBI likely had a “hit” in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database on Abrego Garcia.
“My theory is that the FBI probably had a hit, which would be a computerized notification, on the guy and, this is just speculation on my part, I think he was a lost asset, just my gut feeling,” the retired officer said.
He continued, explaining how Abrego Garcia may have been a former informant or someone connected to a federal investigation.
“I think, maybe, he’d been out for a while and nobody had seen him or found him and it popped up and they probably said, ‘If this guy is stopped, contact the FBI immediately.’ So they did and they probably, gut feeling is, may have said, ‘Hey, look the other way, he’s going to be in contact with our field agent’,” the retired officer said.
“That’s my gut feeling because I’ve seen hits where things would say contact so and so. It’s very rare,” he added.
With regard to Tennessee Highway Patrol officers’ role in the traffic stop, the retired patrol officer said he believes the state officers were likely following orders from higher up the chain of command and pointed out how it is common in the field for such orders to bypass an individual officer’s judgment if federal interests are involved.
“Somebody way higher up the chain of command made this decision and it might not feel right, at the time…but if Abrego Garcia is an asset for the FBI, who knows. What if they’re really trying to work the boss that owns the vehicle, what if he’s the real guy? You don’t know,” he said.
“I don’t think the officer did anything wrong from what I hear. I just think somebody else way up high said let him go,” he added.
Tune in now to The Michael Patrick Leahy Show – your AMERICA FIRST news talk!
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Traffic Stop” by Thomas R Machnitzki CC3.0.
