East Tennessee Valley Crime Stoppers rolled out a new twist on its fugitive appeals Sunday, wishing a wanted man a happy birthday with a mock invitation to an all-expenses-paid stay at the Knox County jail. The subject of the inaugural post is Audilio Suarez-Chirinos, who is wanted on an aggravated assault charge in the Knoxville-Knox County area, and whose warrant remained active as of August 28, 2026, according to the organization.
The satirical post, titled Birthday Shoutout, is the first installment of a new campaign that East Tennessee Valley Crime Stoppers announced Friday, warning people with active arrest warrants in the Knoxville-Knox County area that they could be publicly featured on their birthdays if they haven't cleared those warrants first. The Knoxville Police Department is referenced in the post, though it did not issue its own separate statement about Suarez-Chirinos. As with all of the organization's wanted notices, Crime Stoppers stresses that Suarez-Chirinos is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and that all listed warrants are subject to change.
How to Avoid a Public Birthday Shoutout
Crime Stoppers is telling anyone hoping to dodge a similar public callout to check their warrant status before their birthday arrives. The group instructed people to contact the Knox County Criminal Court Clerk's Office during business hours at 865-215-2375 to verify or clear an active warrant. Suarez-Chirinos himself is associated with the Knox County Detention Facility as the reporting location tied to the post's birthday-getaway joke, though he had not been taken into custody as of the post's publication.
That facility, officially the Roger D. Wilson Detention Facility, sits at 5001 Maloneyville Road in northeast Knoxville and serves as the county's primary adult intake and detention center, according to Compass Knox. Built in 1994 with an initial capacity of 676 beds and later expanded to a 1,036-bed design, the facility has routinely faced overcrowding, with daily inmate averages frequently topping 1,100 prisoners, per the same report.
The Charge Suarez-Chirinos Faces
Aggravated assault in Tennessee carries serious consequences depending on the intent behind the alleged act. Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-13-102, intentional aggravated assault is a Class C felony punishable by 3 to 15 years in state prison and fines up to $10,000, while reckless aggravated assault is charged as a Class D felony carrying 2 to 12 years, according to information compiled in Sherwood Boutique Litigation records. The statute does not specify which classification applies in this case.
Anyone with information on Suarez-Chirinos's whereabouts is asked to submit a tip rather than contact police directly, since reward eligibility hinges on using Crime Stoppers' own channels. Tips can be phoned in at 877-363-8847, texted as ETTIPS to 738477, submitted through the P3 Tips app, or filed online at EastTNValleyCrimeStoppers.org. Only tips submitted through those official channels that lead to an arrest qualify for a cash reward, and tipsters may remain anonymous throughout the process.
A Growing Toolkit for Fugitive Appeals
The birthday gimmick joins a roster of branded campaigns the organization uses to generate tips, including its weekly Manhunt Monday posts, which helped lead to the arrest of wanted suspect Zachary Wiseman on July 28, 2026. Hoodline's own coverage has tracked several of these appeals recently, including a widening manhunt across three counties for a separate aggravated assault suspect just two days before the Suarez-Chirinos post went live.
Since its founding on May 1, 2021, through a joint initiative between Knoxville city leadership and the Knoxville Police Department, East Tennessee Valley Crime Stoppers has operated as an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit partnering with more than 30 law enforcement agencies across the region. Between its launch and May 2026, the organization says its tip line led to more than 625 arrests, helped clear over 425 cases, and distributed more than $110,000 in cash rewards. That track record comes as the Knoxville Police Department's own year-end statistics for 2025 showed a 26 percent decline in citywide homicides and a 27 percent decrease in non-fatal shootings compared with the prior year, suggesting the public tip pipeline is running alongside broader drops in violent crime.
