Knox County District Attorney Charme Allen, who also released security and body camera footage, said her office had reviewed all the evidence in the case. From the evidence gathered, Allen said she would not institute a response to officers because it is reasonable that the officer who shot felt that she and the other officers’ lives were in danger.
Anthony Thompson, 17 (17), exchanged with officers in a bathroom of the school on April 12. Thompson was pronounced dead at the scene and an officer, Adam Wilson, was shot and injured, though the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations found he was not hit by Thompson’s gunfire.
Allen said during the press conference that the incident began with a domestic situation between Thompson, Jr. and another student at school that afternoon. The unnamed female student went home and told her mother about the incident, who said in text messages with Thompson that she was calling the police.
In a call to 911, according to a tape played by Allen, the mother tells the operator that Brown is known to be carrying a gun and that he assaulted her daughter at school that day.
Officers responded to the school to arrest Thompson on charges of domestic violence after officers questioned the mother and female student at their home, Allen said. Officers responding to the call knew that Thompson was known to be carrying a gun, but had no evidence or knowledge that he would carry the gun to school.
According to the district attorney, Thompson aimed his gun at one of the officers in the bathroom and then fired a shot into a trash can. An officer fired back and fatally wounded Thompson. Wilson, the School Resources Officer, was also injured in the shooting.
The investigation shows that the bullets that hit both Thompson and Wilson were fired from another response officer’s rifle, Allen said.
Allen said Thompson’s family watched the videos from the camera and asked her not to release them, but she did so because she had promised transparency in the investigation earlier.
Austin-East Magnet High School is a Title 1 school, which is a federal program that provides financial assistance to ‘schools with a high or high percentage of children from low-income families,’ according to the Department of Education.
The school’s website focuses on performing arts that provide resources, including visual arts, CTE, and rigorous academic courses. ‘