It was a busy weekend for Tennessee State Senator Jim Summerville. The outgoing lawmaker, who lost in the Republican primary in August and subsequently quit the party, was arrested twice for harassing and threatening a female neighbor of his. Summerville had been arrested last month for public intoxication after sitting and drinking in a number of his neighbors’ yards. In this case, he has focused his attention on his next-door neighbor.
The neighbor, Cecilia Donaven, says that Summerville began harassing her after she intervened when Summerville tried to get another neighbor’s dog picked up by animal control. After that incident, Summerville began throwing toilet paper in her yard and shining flashlights in her window. She pointed out that whenever he was gone, he’d leave a flashlight in the fence to shine directly through one of her windows. She began video taping his actions to take to the police.
Eventually, Summerville was arrested Friday on stalking charges. He was arrested again on Saturday for assault after Donaven once again called the police due to an incident where she felt threatened by the soon-to-be ex-Senator. In an incident that was also recorded on video, Summerville was sitting at the foot of her driveway when she left. He held up a sign that read, ‘Just keep it up. You’ve been warned.’ Donaven also states that Summerville had a can of mace and pointed it at her direction.
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Below is video of Donovan’s interview with Nashville television station WSMV:
Summerville has been released on $10,000 bond and instructed to stay away from Donaven. As one would expect from Summerville, he denies that he is stalking or harassing his neighbor. In his mind, this is all a grand conspiracy by the local police to harass him. In a statement released to the press, Summerville claimed he would be filing a lawsuit against the Dickson Police Department.
“The City of Dickson Police Department is engaging a systematic campaign of harassment. (Stalking! At my age?) Once these charges are resolved in court, I shall be suing the City of Dickson. Settlement negotiations will start at one million dollars.”
Apparently, Summerville isn’t just a person who likes to threaten female neighbors. He also happens to be a racist. He saw his name make headlines last year when he tried to get a bill passed that would get rid of affirmative action in Tennessee colleges and universities. When the bill went nowhere, he told his colleagues in the Senate that there would be repercussions for their actions. He also insulted the state’s black caucus when he sent an email to the caucus leader saying he didn’t give a “rat’s ass what the black caucus thinks.” He also told the caucus leader to share the email with other caucus members.
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
