Rutherford County Sheriff's Major Fired

MURFREESBORO, TN — In one of his last moves as acting sheriff, Rutherford County Sheriff's Department Deputy Chief Keith Lowery fired another top-ranking official with ties to now-jailed and suspended sheriff Robert Arnold, according to WSMV.

Major Derrell Cagle was fired Thursday morning, just hours before the Rutherford County Commission appointed retired captain Mike Fitzhugh to take over as interim sheriff. Fitzhugh cannot officially exercise the powers of the sheriff until he is bonded, which is expected to happen early next week.

In the termination letter, Lowery wrote of Cagle's "persistent deficiencies in management" and "failure to follow the appropriate procedures of reported incidents" at the Rutherford County Jail, which has been decertified. Emails obtained by Channel 4 indicate that Cagle helped distribute e-cigarettes to inmates that were sold by JailCigs, the company at the center of the federal corruption case against Arnold.