What we know now about the shooting at Austin-East HS (Knoxville, TN)

I posted this at the end of my discussion thread Thursday and I thought some of you might not have seen it. There have been some new developments since then!

Wheat we know now is that the police did not even bother to call for a crisis negotiator. Now to me, that is just stupid in a bucket and gives the family a pretty good case for a lawsuit. I don't know whether that smacks of impatience or incompetence. Some of the officers involved have been cops for awhile, so I wouldn't think the latter. I'll post a link, but the story is labeled "for Subscribers" so you may not be able to access the whole thing. I'll post as much of it as I can without getting blasted for breaking copyright.

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2021/04/15/knoxville-police-did-not-call-crisis-negotiators-talk-armed-teen-school-bathroom/7231795002/

Knoxville police say they can't explain — for now at least — why the agency didn't call in its Crisis Negotiation Unit to peacefully disarm an Austin-East student who was holed up in a school bathroom with a gun.

Instead, police entered the bathroom and ended up in a confrontation that left 17-year-old Anthony J. Thompson Jr. shot to death and a police officer wounded by gunfire.

The Knoxville Police Department has a team of officers who receive special training in crisis negotiations. According to the city’s website, there are 14 members of the Crisis Negotiation Unit. The members take turns serving as the on-call crisis negotiator, so every shift is covered.
(comment: KPD wouldn't or couldn't say how many times this unit has been used in the past year.)

The TBI said its agents cannot address why Knoxville police did not summon a negotiator, referring questions Wednesday to Knox County District Attorney General Charme Allen.
Knox County Schools spokeswoman Carly Harrington told Knox News she also didn't know why the four officers on the scene, including school resource officer Adam Willson, didn’t first seek to negotiate with Thompson.
(italics mine)

Now here we get to the interesting part:

In a news conference less than fours after the 3:15 p.m. shooting Monday, TBI Director David Rausch, a former Knoxville police chief, provided an account later contradicted by the TBI on Wednesday. In the first statement on Monday, Rausch said Thompson “reportedly fired shots” at officers as they entered the restroom, striking Willson in the upper leg. The officers, Rausch said, returned fire, killing Thompson.

By Wednesday afternoon, that account had been flipped on its head: the TBI revealed that Thompson had not, in fact, shot Willson. Instead, Willson was hit by friendly fire – either his own or from one of the three other officers involved.

In this new account, the TBI insisted Thompson was armed and holed up in the bathroom when police arrived but offered no explanation for why a negotiator wasn’t summoned.

The TBI now says Thompson “struggled” with officers as they rushed into the bathroom, and his gun “was fired” in the struggle. But the agency doesn't identify who fired the gun, and won’t say who fatally shot Thompson.

The agency has given no indication whether anyone was inside the bathroom with Thompson when officers arrived. The TBI has not revealed where the gun they say was in Thompson’s possession was located after the shooting or by whom. The agency has not revealed who owned the gun or how it wound up on school grounds. It’s also not clear why Thompson was holed up in the bathroom with a gun in the first place.

Knoxville police have refused to release bodycam footage of the shooting, citing orders from Allen. Mayor Indya Kincannon on Wednesday made an appeal to Allen to allow redacted footage to be released. Allen refused, and said Thursday she will not release anything related to the investigation, including video, until the case is concluded.
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That is about as much as I dare print, but it sounds to me like the cops are covering up a bad screwup. They kinda look like cats trying to cover their mess on a tile floor. I hope some of you can access the article.
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Since I posted this on Thursday, the police chief, three of the four officers involved (the fourth, presumably, is not talking because he's still in the hospital), and the mayor have all asked for the bodycam footage to be released. DA Charme Allen, however, has refused, saying it would "taint" the investigation. There are now rumors flying that the boy didn't even have a gun. If that were the case, this could turn ugly in a heartbeat. However, even if he did, the fact that officers did not call for a crisis negotiator when they have them available 24/7 is a huge fail on their part.