A 42-year-old Monterey man who communicated with a 12-year-old Cookeville girl via Facebook and drove to meet her got a surprise when he arrived at the meeting place.

Instead of the girl, it was her father who met the Monterey man.

The angry dad called police and also hit the man, bloodying his nose, police said.

It happened Saturday morning, July 7, and the meeting place was Cane Creek Park, says a report by Cookeville Police Officer Anthony Reep.

No arrests have been made, but the case is still under investigation, according to Detective Lt. Carl Sells.

It began recently when the Cookeville man noticed that his 12-year-old daughter was receiving Facebook messages from an adult man he does not know. He asked his daughter about the messages and she did not know the man either.

The father looked up the messenger’s Facebook page and there found his date of birth and phone number. He then decided to send messages to the Monterey man while posing as his own daughter.

He sent text messages by phone to the man, and the man messaged back, thinking he was communicating with the little girl. Allegedly, he asked to see a photo of her in a swim suit. He also agreed to meet her at Cane Creek Park.

But once he arrived there, it was the dad who met him, and he was very angry, according to police reports on the case.

Before police arrived on the scene, the two men had a fight, and the Monterey man, who was bleeding, immediately told arriving officers that he deserved it.

“He said he should not have agreed to meet (the girl), and also said he just wanted to be friends because he couldn’t have children,” says a report by Officer Reep.

Detective Sgt. Chase Mathis later interviewed the suspect, who allegedly told him “he knew the girl he was meeting was 12 years old and that he deserved what her dad had done to him.”

“He told me he had seen a profile of a girl on Facebook and decided to message her only by sending ‘Hi.’ He said they messaged back and forth a few times, but he later told her that he did not want to talk any more.”

Then he received a text message from someone he thought to be the same girl, he told the detective.

The Monterey man admitted to police that he knew the girl’s age, that he sent a photo of himself, and that he wanted to see her wearing a bathing suit.

Allegedly, he also told the detective that he did not have children of his own and “just wanted to be friends with her,” just wanted to be an ‘uncle figure,’ to her.

“He said that he was only going to talk to her about school and what she wanted to be when she grew up,” the report says.

Detectives continue to investigate this case.

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A Putnam County jail corrections officer who lost his job on Thursday, July 5 and was appealing that decision was arrested Saturday, July 7, law officers said.

Joshua Martin Tate, 35, of S. Willow Ave., Cookeville, was charged with public intoxication and resisting arrest after an incident at Rodeo Bob’s bar on S. Jefferson Ave. late Friday night, July 6, according to a report by Cookeville Police Officer Josh Ward.

Officer Ward said he was called to that bar on a report of a disturbance and found that Joshua Martin Tate and another man were “refusing to leave the property after being denied entrance into the bar.”

Both men smelled strongly of alcohol and Tate allegedly argued with the bar’s security officer, telling them he was a deputy and telling Officer Ward he was “a deputy at the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department,” Officer Ward’s report says.

After some discussion, the two men agreed to leave the area in a cab, but Tate hesitated, began to curse, and was slow to obey the officer’s commands, the officer alleges.

“I grabbed his arm to place him into custody,” Officer Ward said.

“He tried to pull his arm away and said he had done nothing wrong. I advised him he was under arrest and to exit the vehicle or I would deploy the Taser. He tried to pull away and refused to exit the vehicle.”

Officer Ward did use the Taser and Tate was then handcuffed and taken to the Putnum County Jail, where he had been employed until the previous Thursday.

On Thursday, July 5, Jail Administrator Jimmy Patterson had terminated Tate “due to some issues,” as Patterson put it.

“He had only been working as a corrections officer for about a month and we had determined that he was just not a good fit for the job and he was terminated,” Patterson said.

But Tate was appealing that decision to Sheriff David Andrews, and that appeal was underway at the time of his arrest last Saturday.

Sheriff Andrews told the Herald-Citizen that the appeal “has now been decided.”

“His arrest ends the appeal,” the sheriff said. “I have a no-arrest policy for employees.”

Tate posted bond and was released from jail on Saturday. He has a June 23 court date.