One High School, Five Students Fatally Shot
The killings came in rapid succession.
On a cold night in late January, a high school football player was found unconscious and bleeding from a single gunshot wound. Two weeks later, a 16-year-old student was killed by what the authorities said may have been a stray bullet. Four days after that, a co-captain of the dance team was shot dead. In early March, a 15-year-old who last attended classes in the fall died from gunshot wounds.
And last week, Anthony J. Thompson Jr., 17, was shot and killed by a police officer in a brief scuffle inside a cramped bathroom on the same campus, becoming the fifth student at Austin-East Magnet High School this year to die of gun violence.
In Knoxville, a Black high school contends with a massive rise in teen shootings
Constance Every and a student of Austin-East Magnet High School protest the police shooting of Anthony J. Thompson Jr.
(Jenny Jarvie / Los Angeles Times)
May 2, 2021 3 AM PT
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.
The Black community that surrounds Austin-East Magnet High School was still mourning its dead four students gunned down this year when the news broke.
Another shooting, this one inside the school.
With Austin-East in lockdown and police with rifles patrolling the halls, it was hours before officials announced that a fifth student had been fatally shot.
For many, this killing was the hardest to take: The shooter was a police officer, and he was Black.
U.S.|One High School, Five Students Fatally Shot
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/us/knoxville-anthony-thompson.html
Family and friends honored the lives of young people killed by gun violence in the Austin-East Magnet High School community in Knoxville, Tenn. Many wore shirts with a picture of Justin Taylor, 15, who died in January.Credit.Jessica Tezak for The New York Times
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One High School, Five Students Fatally Shot
Five students at a Knoxville, Tenn., high school have been killed in gun violence this year, plunging a community’s young people into a whirlwind of trauma.
Family and friends honored the lives of young people killed by gun violence in the Austin-East Magnet High School community in Knoxville, Tenn. Many wore shirts with a picture of Justin Taylor, 15, who died in January.Credit.Jessica Tezak for The New York Times
Tennessee Student Killed by Police Did Not Fire Bullet That Hit Officer, Officials Say
Anthony J. Thompson Jr., 17, a student at Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tenn., was fatally shot during a struggle, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said.
Felicia Outsey, right, led a group in prayer in front of Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tenn., on Tuesday.Credit.Brianna Paciorka/Knoxville News Sentinel, via Associated Press
April 14, 2021
A student who was fatally shot during a confrontation with the police on Monday at a Knoxville, Tenn., high school did not fire the bullet that struck an officer who was wounded, the authorities said on Wednesday.
Target: Knox County, Tennessee District Attorney General Charme P. Allen
Goal: Charge and arrest man for allegedly kicking kitten so hard the animal is now brain dead, and do not allow him to continue playing college football.
A 6-month-old kitten named Nugget was allegedly kicked, put into a toilet, and locked inside a bathroom by a University of Tennessee football player named Aaron Beasley. According to reports, Beasley’s girlfriend and roommate waited for hours before bothering to open the bathroom door to let the kitten out, rather than immediately calling the police.
The girlfriend claims to have not seen any abuse. However, a third roommate reportedly told police that Beasley’s girlfriend had sent her a text saying her boyfriend had put Nugget in the toilet. Reports state that she also told them the girlfriend had been crying and telling Beasley he could not do what he was doing during the alleged incident.