DYERSBURG, Tenn. – A Dyer County judge granted a judgment of acquittal for all four defendants Thursday and dismissed the charges against them, according to defense attorney Jere Mason.
Mason represented two of the West Tennessee sheriff’s deputies on trial this week over the arrest of murder suspect Jackson Hopper in 2024. Mason said none of the charges reached a jury.
At a glance
What happened: The judge ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to let the case go to the jury, a step called a judgment of acquittal. All charges were dismissed.
Who was cleared: Sgt. Larry “Lynn” Waller (Dyer County Sheriff’s Office), Deputy Bryan Lane (Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office), Deputy Samuel Chastain (Tipton County Sheriff’s Office) and Deputy Dakota Wilkerson (Tipton County Sheriff’s Office).
Why they were charged: A grand jury indicted them over how Hopper, a murder suspect, was arrested after a car chase in Dyer County in October 2024.
What’s next: The case is over for these four officers. Two other officers charged separately with tampering with evidence were not part of this trial.
The arrest of Jackson Hopper
The case dates back to Oct. 19, 2024, when Jackson Hopper shot his former girlfriend, Ellie Young, to death at Shelby Farms Park in Memphis, then led law enforcement on a multi-county pursuit through West Tennessee. The pursuit ended in a wreck in Dyer County, where deputies arrested him.
Video of the arrest spread online quickly, even made TMZ headlines, and raised questions about how much force officers used.
At the request of 29th Judicial District Attorney General Danny Goodman, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation opened an inquiry into the arrest. A Dyer County grand jury indicted several officers in early 2025; Waller was indicted separately in June 2025.
Jury selection began Monday, with opening statements the next afternoon. Jurors saw body camera footage from the arrest before the judge’s ruling ended the trial Thursday.
What were they charged with?
Lane, Chastain and Wilkerson each faced one count of official misconduct, one count of official oppression and one count of assault, meaning prosecutors accused them of misusing their authority as officers and using excessive force during Hopper’s arrest.
Waller faced one count of official misconduct. He wasn’t accused of using force himself. As the supervisor in charge at the scene, he was accused of seeing other officers use excessive force and failing to step in and stop it, something the law requires supervisors to do.
What the defense has said
Mason, a former deputy who represents Lane, told the media he believed the arrest was a legitimate use of force, not a crime.
“I’m a use-of-force expert, and from my perspective, there was no assault,” he said.
The sheriffs of Dyer, Lauderdale and Tipton counties have said their own internal reviews found no wrongdoing by their deputies.
What is a judgment of acquittal?
Normally, a jury decides whether someone is guilty or not guilty. But if a judge decides the prosecution’s evidence simply isn’t strong enough to convict, even if the jury believed every bit of it, the judge can end the case early and rule the defendant not guilty. That’s what happened here. The case never reached the jury for a vote.
Who represented whom
Covington-based attorneys Mason and Bryan Huffman represented both Waller and Lane. Munford Attorney Jeff Ward represented Chastain. Attorney John Perry represented Wilkerson.
What’s next
Two other deputies, Benjamin Stanifer of the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office and Matthew Lawler of the Tipton County Sheriff’s Office, were indicted separately on evidence tampering charges connected to the same investigation. Those charges were not part of this week’s trial. A Mason police officer originally charged in the case, Zachary Antle, later had his charges dismissed.
Stanifer is a former Covington police officer.
Paper Folds News will update this story as more information becomes available.