"To Ensure Secrecy": What North Little Rock Knew About Tommy Norman

"To Ensure Secrecy": What North Little Rock Knew About Tommy Norman

For twenty-six years, North Little Rock police disciplined, excused and promoted the same officer. Their own records show what they knew, and how hard they worked to keep anyone else from knowing it.

By Chief Elder Ean Lee Bordeaux

For a decade, Tommy Norman was North Little Rock's gift to the internet: the officer who danced with children, delivered groceries and convinced millions of strangers that a patrolman could be a neighborhood's best friend. The North Little Rock Police Department embraced that image. It defended him in public, supported his foundation, and let his fame become its own.

The department also knew who he was. It had known since 1999.

The record they had

The North Little Rock Police Department's own files, which it released to me under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act only after the Attorney General ordered it to, describe three sustained internal-affairs cases.

In 1999, the department investigated Officer Norman for "patronizing a prostitute and knowingly associating with an individual … who runs a prostitution service." It sustained findings for conflict of interest and for failing to promote a positive public image, and suspended him for 15 days.

In 2001, its investigation found that he "engaged in a sexual relationship" with a woman, "provided her money to pay bills," and then "threatened her with arrest if she did not stop talking about their relationship." He was suspended for 10 days.

In 2004, a mother complained that he had made an inappropriate remark, on duty, to her 15-year-old daughter. Investigators found that he then went to the family's home, accused the mother of spreading rumors, and threatened to sue her for slander. She later told internal affairs that a North Little Rock police car had followed her across the river to the offices of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She could not say who was driving. After a hearing, the department suspended him for 20 working days without pay, and its written decision says his "past performance and disciplinary actions were considered."

That is a sustained record of misconduct involving women and a child, and of threats against the people who might talk. It was not rumor. It was the department's own finding, three times over.

What they did with it

Then the department made him its brand.

It let him film children in uniform for a national audience. It let him collect gifts and cash from strangers through a post office box. When commanders met with him in June 2017 about his social media, the department issued a press release saying it "fully supports his desire to operate his own foundation." By then it had sustained three cases against him.

Last year I asked the City for the records that should exist when a police department allows an officer to build a following on video of other people's children: parental consent forms, risk reviews, policy exceptions, and communications with its public-information office about his content involving young people. On July 24, 2025, the City answered in writing. It said it had none.

What they were told next

The complaints did not stop. What stopped was the department's willingness to investigate them.

In October 2015, a woman gave internal affairs a recorded statement accusing him of soliciting her for sex for money and of using his badge to get sex. She said she came forward after he told her she had outstanding warrants, and she then learned she had none. Two months later, the chief received a third-hand report that he had received sexual favors from teenage girls. The source refused to cooperate further.

On December 21, 2015, Chief Mike Davis met with the FBI. The same day, the department printed Officer Norman's full internal-affairs history: 1999, 2001 and 2004. The chief had the record in hand. His memo explains why he took the case outside: "to ensure secrecy (especially if the information was not sustained)."

In June 2017, a donor told internal affairs she had mailed "thousands of dollars of gifts and cash" to that post office box and believed she was being defrauded. She said she was afraid because of a message he sent her after she raised it. The lieutenant asked her to forward her messages, "specifically the threatening one." The outcome is written at the bottom of the memo: "Chief Davis Forwarded to FBI no further investigation from NLRPD." Two days later came the press release praising him.

In July 2018, two more donors reported that money and gift cards sent to that box for an elderly man in his videos never reached the man. The lieutenant who took those calls was Patrick Thessing, who is now North Little Rock's chief of police. Internal affairs wrote back to one donor: "we take allegations of misconduct seriously." The file shows what that meant. In handwriting: "Forwarded to FBI by Chief Davis 8/17/18." Typed beneath it: "No further investigation by NLRPD."

In July 2024, a woman complained that he was paying her girlfriend's bills in exchange for sex and had told her she had warrants. That is the pattern the department sustained in 2001, and the same claim made in 2015. He denied it. The department withheld the outcome.

In June 2025, internal affairs opened a complaint over one of his own videos, which showed him leaving his gun belt, service pistol in the holster, unattended near children. The Attorney General's opinion lists a letter of reprimand dated that month.

None of the 2015, 2017, 2018 or 2024 accusations was ever proven. None was ever investigated by the department either. Nothing in these files shows that the FBI reported back on either referral, or that anyone in North Little Rock asked.

What they did when the public asked

When I requested these records last year, Officer Norman asked the Attorney General to keep them from me. On July 21, 2025, Attorney General Tim Griffin ruled that for the 1999, 2001 and 2004 cases, "all four elements have been met" for release. The City then released a production with the investigative summary of the 2004 case blacked out, fourteen of its pages fully blacked out, and only a one-page summary for each of the other two cases.

It did, however, release the 2004 girl's full name. The department that failed her in 2004 still had not learned to protect her twenty-one years later.

In September 2025, Officer Norman was arrested on a domestic-violence charge. He has pleaded not guilty and has retired.

This was never about one officer

It would be comfortable to call this the story of a charismatic man who fooled everyone. The records say something worse. He didn't fool the department. The department disciplined him three times, then chose his image over his record. Each time a new accusation arrived, it had a choice: investigate its most famous officer, or protect the brand. Each time, it protected the brand. It sent the problem to another agency, wrote "no further investigation," and went back to celebrating him.

That is not a failure of detection. It is a decision, repeated for twenty-six years by people who are still accountable today.

What must happen now

Chief Patrick Thessing should release, without further delay, the complete 1999, 2001 and 2004 files the Attorney General has already cleared. He should also explain publicly why the 2018 donor complaints he personally received were closed without investigation.

Mayor Terry Hartwick and the City Council should appoint an investigator who does not work for the City to examine every complaint against Officer Norman since 1999, and publish what that investigator finds.

The City should disclose what it gave the FBI in 2015 and 2018, and whether anyone ever followed up. If the answer is that no one did, the public deserves to hear that too.

Prosecuting Attorney Will Jones should say whether his office knew of these sustained findings. An officer found to have threatened people into silence is an officer whose credibility defense lawyers had a right to challenge. His office should review the cases in which Officer Norman was a necessary witness.

The Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training should review his certification, so that retirement does not become a route back to a badge somewhere else.

And every department in this state should adopt two rules North Little Rock never had. No officer may collect money from the public through a persona built on his badge. No officer may film children for publication without written consent and review by the department.

The secrecy worked. Until now.

In December 2015, the chief of police of North Little Rock wrote that he was acting "to ensure secrecy." For nearly ten years, it worked. The women who complained were sent away. The donors were told their concerns were taken seriously. The girl's family had been told their complaint was handled.

The secrecy is over. The records are public, and the Attorney General said they should be. What remains is whether the people who run North Little Rock will answer for them, or wait again for the story to go away. The residents of North Little Rock have waited long enough.

Chief Elder Ean Lee Bordeaux is a senior legal investigator with the West Feliciana Houma-Choctaw Indigenous Community in Little Rock. He obtained the records described here under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.