Nashville falconer sues TWRA officers who illegally seized 13 birds, leading to one's death

Nashville falconer and songwriter Holly Lamar is suing three Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency (TWRA) officers who seized her 13 birds last year, one of which died after being taken from her.

A judge earlier this year threw out the state’s case against Lamar, ruling that her birds and property had been taken illegally and ordering they be returned to her.

Lamar, the founder of Wing Blade Falconry, says that officers were retaliating against her for filing a complaint against one of them with the TWRA. She said the experience "almost killed me."

"I had my 13 children kidnapped," Lamar said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. "I remember the feeling of waking up every morning with that. I just didn't want to live."

The lawsuit, first reported by The Tennessee Lookout, was filed July 25 in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Lamar is represented by Nashville attorney Ben Raybin.

The three TWRA employees named in the lawsuit — Captain Russell “Rusty” Boles, Col. Darren Rider and Officer Matthew Norman — are being sued in their individual capacities. TWRA communications director Emily Buck said in an email that the agency nor the individual officers could comment on active litigation.

According to the lawsuit, Lamar in 2021 obtained her Tennessee master falconry permit and various federal permits and started taking steps to make sure she was complying with all “relevant Tennessee bird laws and regulations” relating to the permits so she could operate her business.

Lamar said she had worked through several personal issues, like anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, with her birds, and wanted others to have the same experiences.

"I've always been a sensitive and emotional person and very spiritual, and this business for me was spiritual," Lamar said. "Which made it even harder ... because all I ever wanted to do with this business was help."

In spring 2022, Boles, who had recently been named Captive Wildlife Coordinator, began giving her erroneous legal information about how many birds she was allowed to possess and what she did with those birds, the lawsuit states.

On July 25, 2022, Lamar filed a complaint against Boles with the TWRA explaining that his information was inaccurate and that he often failed to respond to her other questions. That complaint was forwarded to Rider, who heads TWRA’s law enforcement division.

Within days, Norman and other officers from TWRA received a warrant to search her property. On Aug. 2, 2022, they took her 13 birds, cell phone and other electronic equipment. The birds were held at two raptor centers that Lamar says were inadequate to care for them for extended periods of time.

She was charged with 30 misdemeanors.

“The sheer number of criminal charges Defendants brought against Plaintiff Lamar — far more than are typically placed against murderers and rapists — reflect Defendants’ vengeful and unreasonable personal animus and ill-will against her,” the lawsuit states.

One of the birds, Faith, named after Faith Hill, with whom Lamar wrote the song "Breathe," died. But she didn’t find out until a week later, when the officers told the prosecutor in her case, who then told Lamar’s attorney.

“Plaintiff Lamar was devastated by receiving news that one of her birds had died, particularly because she had raised that bird by hand over the last seven years,” the lawsuit states. “She was particularly distraught because Defendant Boles conveyed an erroneous band number of the deceased bird, so Plaintiff had to spend hours attempting to learn which bird had died in the middle of the night.”

It was five months until her surviving birds were returned to her, when Davidson County Judge Lynda Jones dismissed the search warrants and called the agency’s actions “an abuse of the law.” Several of her birds are still psychologically damaged by being taken from her and held in confinement for an extended period of time, she said.

"The order found that the 'search and seizure were made illegally with an invalid search warrant, and in violation of the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures,'" the lawsuit states.

The search warrant was based on misinterpretations of bird law in Tennessee, according to the lawsuit.

While Lamar owned 13 birds, the state’s five-raptor limit applies only to birds TWRA has jurisdiction over — birds native to Tennessee — and Lamar had only four such birds. The state’s five-raptor limit also only applies to falcons used for hunting, and most of Lamar’s birds were used for educational purposes.

Lamar said in the lawsuit that there are several other falconers in the state with more than five raptors who were not prosecuted, and she claims that the officers would not have prosecuted her in this case if she were a man.

She said Tuesday afternoon that she hopes that legislators take action to reform TWRA, including by changing it from an agency to a department, increasing accountability over its actions and employing fewer law enforcement and more biologists and other experts.

Lamar is suing the men for unlawful search and seizure; violation of substantive due process; malicious prosecution and false arrest; First Amendment retaliation; gender discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection clause; and civil conspiracy.

She is asking for unspecified monetary damages from the defendants for emotional suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and loss of past and future earnings, as well as attorneys’ fees and any other applicable relief.

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanMealins.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville falconer Lamar sues TWRA officers who seized birds