A 43-year-old Hancock County man is facing three felony invasion of privacy charges after officers say he spent nearly five hours atop a University of Tennessee parking garage using binoculars to look into apartment windows in Knoxville's Fort Sanders neighborhood. Dusty Cooper, of Sneedville, dropped the binoculars when officers reached the top deck of the garage Tuesday afternoon, according to court records.
Officers responded to the Lake Avenue Parking Garage after receiving a report of a suspicious man using binoculars to look into apartment windows, court records state, as reported by WVLT. When police reached him, Cooper reportedly said he did not know why he had been staring into apartment windows, and later said he was making phone calls, according to a police statement. He allegedly told officers he had seen a woman wearing nothing but a towel and used the binoculars to get a closer look at her.
The Lake Avenue garage, known as G11, is an eight-story, 350,000-square-foot structure with roughly 1,000 parking spaces, according to Design Innovation Architects. The university opened the garage under a joint agreement with the City of Knoxville that allows both university permit holders and members of the public paying hourly rates to park there, per the City of Knoxville. That public access arrangement is what allowed a non-affiliated visitor like Cooper to drive up to the structure's upper decks in the first place.
A Rooftop Perch Overlooking Student Housing
The garage sits in the Fort Sanders neighborhood, an area densely packed with multi-story student apartment complexes immediately adjacent to campus, according to The Daily Beacon. The garage's height creates sightlines directly into the windows of those residential buildings, a layout that put Cooper's alleged rooftop vantage point within view of multiple apartments.
Cooper allegedly told officers he had gone to the garage on his lunch break for the last two days, according to court records. Officers, however, said they had seen him atop the parking garage on multiple days, and security camera footage showed he had been at the top of the garage for nearly five hours before officers responded on Tuesday. Sneedville sits roughly 69 miles northeast of Knoxville in Hancock County, about an hour and a half away via U.S. Route 11W, per MapSof.net — a distance that makes his stated lunch-break visits notably long round trips.
Search Turns Up THC Vape, Additional Charge
During a search of Cooper, officers found a THC vape, and he was also charged with simple possession. Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-418, simple possession of a controlled substance is classified as a Class A misdemeanor, carrying penalties of up to 11 months and 29 days in jail and fines up to $2,500, according to Nashville Attorney Now. Cooper called using binoculars to look into apartment windows a bad idea, though the dossier does not specify what statutory elements elevated his case to three felony counts.
Invasion of privacy offenses such as observation without consent and unlawful photography are typically Class A misdemeanors under Tennessee law, but escalate to Class E felonies under specific aggravating circumstances, according to Justia Law's summary of Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-13-607 and § 39-13-605. A Class E felony conviction in Tennessee carries a statutory prison sentence range of one to six years and a maximum fine of $3,000 under Tennessee Code Annotated § 40-35-111, and because Cooper faces three separate counts, any sentences could potentially run consecutively.
Overlapping Police Jurisdiction Near Campus
The Cumberland Avenue and Fort Sanders residential district falls within the concurrent patrol service area of both the Knoxville Police Department and the University of Tennessee Police Department, according to the University of Tennessee Police Department. That overlapping coverage means municipal officers can respond to calls in a garage that serves both campus permit holders and paying members of the public. Public and university parking garages in Knoxville's Cumberland District also use integrated security cameras and enforcement technology to monitor multi-level facilities, per PBA Parking, which is how investigators were able to establish how long Cooper had lingered atop the structure.
The case echoes a similar prosecution elsewhere in the state. In March, a Middle Tennessee deputy was indicted on six counts of felony observation without consent under the same Tennessee statute following a state investigation into unauthorized domestic surveillance, as previously reported. It remains unclear whether any minors were involved in Cooper's case or whether any images or recordings were made, details that are not specified in the court records reviewed so far.
