“Wait. Wait. Wait.”
But in a flash, a police officer had shot and killed 17-year-old Anthony Thompson Jr. during a short struggle after authorities say a handgun Thompson was carrying went off and struck a trash can. As Thompson lay on the school bathroom floor with officers on top of him, another student who also had been shoved to the ground and handcuffed screamed, “What are you all doing?”
The April 12 fatal shooting took place at Austin-East High School, an arts magnet school nestled inside a quiet Knoxville neighborhood near the zoo. A funeral home sits directly across the street. Painted prominently on the road separating the two buildings are the words “Black Lives Matter.”
By Victor Omondi
After the public mounted pressure on authorities to release the bodycam footage of the April 12 police shooting of a 17-year-old student at Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, the video was finally released after a nine-day investigation was carried out by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Knox County District Attorney Charme Allen announced on April 21 that the police involved in the fatal shooting of the teenager was justified.
“This is a self-defense case,” Allen said during a news conference.
On that fateful day, teenager Anthony Thompson Jr. and his girlfriend, Alexus Page, who study at the same school, had reportedly engaged in a physical fight.