GILES COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — Giles County authorities seized child sexual abuse material from a Pulaski home and took the man living there into custody Wednesday.
Officials said the Giles County Sheriff’s Department — with some help from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Pulaski Police Department — executed a search warrant at the home of 40-year-old Tyler Petty in Pulaski on Wednesday, Feb. 12.
Lt. Josh Bass, who spearheaded the investigation for the sheriff’s department, told News 2 that Petty is accused of trading child pornography on the internet.
When asked if Petty was taking pictures of local kids or just exchanging the information and images with others online, Bass offered the following answer: “Right now, we just have the exchange of the child pornography. We haven’t identified any victims in our jurisdiction yet, but it’s still an ongoing investigation.”
Law enforcement seized computers, hard drives, and other digital devices that could contain child sexual abuse material.
According to Giles County authorities, they learned about Petty after his online activities were flagged by the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, which monitors the web for child porn.
“We’re fully committed and dedicated at the Giles County Sheriff’s Department to helping these kids because they are true victims in these crimes,” Bass said. “In most cases, the kids are innocent, they’re manipulated by people that they love and trust to help them and take care of them, and then that trust is betrayed, obviously, by these sexual predators.”
Officials described Petty as an unemployed truck driver who lived with his mother and had no criminal history prior to his arrest Wednesday.
“When we showed up to the residence, I believe he was asleep. We woke him up when we got there. He stated that he didn’t know what was going on and didn’t understand, which is common in most of these situations,” Bass explained on Thursday, Feb. 13. “Again, we receive numerous tips daily. As a matter of fact, yesterday, during the execution of this search warrant, we received another ICAC tip that is completely separate from what we were doing yesterday, so this is an ongoing thing. We take it very seriously and are dedicated to helping these children out.”
According to the sheriff’s department’s website, Petty is being held without bond for one count of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor from July 2024 and three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor from September 2024.
