A student who was fatally shot during a confrontation with
the police Monday at a Knoxville, Tennessee, high school did not fire the
bullet that struck an officer who was wounded, the authorities said Wednesday.
اضافة اعلان
The disclosure by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
contradicted its earlier statements that the police officer had been shot by
the student at Austin-East Magnet High School.
The bureau said Wednesday that the student’s gun had been
fired in a struggle with officers.
“Preliminary examinations indicate the
bullet that struck the KPD officer was not fired from the student’s handgun,”
the bureau said in a statement.
Investigators declined to say whether the bullet that struck
the officer in the leg had come from his own gun or from another officer’s
weapon.
The bureau identified the student Wednesday as Anthony
Thompson, a 17-year-old Black student at the school, which has been plagued by
gun violence this year.
The injured officer, identified by the Knoxville Police
Department as Adam Willson, a school resource officer at the high school and a
20-year veteran of the force, is expected to recover.
“During investigations, agents discover facts that may
clarify initial reports,” the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in a
statement Wednesday. “This is why our agency uses terms in our releases such as
‘preliminary,’ ‘possibly,’ and ‘reportedly.’”
A spokesman for the Knoxville Police Department declined to
comment Wednesday night, saying it would not be appropriate until the bureau
and the district attorney general had completed their review of the case.
The bureau, which is led by David Rausch, a former Knoxville
police chief, presides over all investigations of shootings involving officers
in Tennessee.
It said that the deadly encounter had begun Monday afternoon
when Knoxville police officers received a report that a student was possibly
armed with a gun. When officers confronted Anthony in a restroom, a struggle
ensued and his gun was fired, according to the bureau, which said that two
bullets had been fired at him.
It was not immediately clear which of the officers had fired
the shots at the teenager or how many bullets had struck him. Efforts to reach
his family Wednesday night were not immediately successful.
A spokeswoman for the bureau referred further questions to
the Office of the District Attorney General for Knox County, which did not
immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
Charme Allen, the district attorney general, has faced
pressure, from people including Indya Kincannon, the Knoxville mayor, to
release body camera footage from the officers who were involved in the
encounter.
“I hear and feel the frustration, pain and anguish as we
grapple with the tragic shooting inside Austin-East High School,” Kincannon
said Wednesday on Twitter. “I support releasing any incident videos to the
media & public as soon as it is legally allowed.”
Kincannon said there were complications over the release of
the body camera footage because it had been taken inside a school and involved
a minor. She said that Allen had declined requests to make the footage public.
“General Allen explained that she made this decision in
order to maintain the integrity of the on-going investigation and to protect
the constitutional rights of anyone who might be charged as a result of this
investigation,” she said. “I will continue to push for transparency and
communication as this investigation continues.”
At the time of Monday’s shooting, Austin-East High School
was still reeling from the fatal shootings of four students since January, the
Knoxville News Sentinel reported.
In late January, a 15-year-old student died after another
teenager accidentally shot him in a car, the newspaper reported, citing
information from the police. A 17-year-old was arrested and charged with
criminally negligent homicide in that shooting, the paper reported.
On February 12, a 16-year-old student was shot and killed as
he was driving home from school, the paper reported. Two boys, 14 and 16, were
arrested and charged in connection with his death, the News Sentinel said.
Four days later, on February 16, a 15-year-old freshman was
found shot outside her home and was later pronounced dead at a hospital, the
News Sentinel reported.
And on March 10, another 15-year-old student died at a
hospital one day after he was found with a gunshot wound in south Knoxville.
