Anthony Thompson Jr.'s family zeroes in on those they say are responsible for his death
The family of Anthony Thompson Jr. is no longer suing Knox County or the Knox County Board of Education after amending its far-reaching federal lawsuit.
The civil rights lawsuit is now entirely focused on the actions of the city and the four officers involved in the shooting of Thompson, a 17-year-old Austin-East Magnet High School student killed by police in one of the school's bathrooms.
"After reviewing the TBI investigation, it became apparent that Knox County Schools did just about everything right in a terrible situation," the family's attorney, Margaret Held, told Knox News in an emailed statement.
"By contrast, and as described in the complaint," she continued, "the cause of Anthony’s death appears to be the disregard for his safety, for school board and police policy, for the law, and for his Constitutional rights by the Knoxville Police Department."
The attorneys in the lawsuit have been able to read the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation file, which finished its review of the shooting earlier this year. That report is not publicly available. The TBI typically reviews the circumstances around police shootings.
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Thompson was killed April 12, 2021, after four Knoxville Police Department officers barged into the bathroom where he and a friend were hanging out as Thompson cooled off following an argument earlier in the day with his girlfriend. His girlfriend had left school to go home, and her mother had called police to complain that Thompson had put hands on the girl, an assertion the lawsuit says is not supported by Austin-East camera footage.
Thompson was carrying a handgun in the front pocket of his hoodie because he feared for his safety, especially after his girlfriend's mother sent him a series of threatening texts, the lawsuit says. The teenager never had an opportunity to explain he was armed or to surrender the gun when police rushed into the bathroom.
Body camera footage revealed four officers wound up inside the narrow bathroom: officer Jonathan Clabough, officer Brian Baldwin, school resource officer Adam Willson and Lt. Stanley Cash. They surrounded Thompson, who was wearing a backpack and began pulling him out of the stall.
A struggle ensued and, the Knox County District Attorney General's office said, Thompson's gun discharged into a trash can. Baldwin immediately dropped from Clabough's view. Clabough mistakenly believed Baldwin had been shot, so he fired, striking Thompson in the chest, killing him.
Clabough fired a second shot because he thought Thompson was about to shoot Cash, the DA's office has said. That shot struck Willson in the leg.
In the days after the shooting, the TBI released two differing accounts of what occurred, including an incorrect assertion that Thompson was the one who shot Willson.
After intense public pressure to see the police body camera footage, Knox County District Attorney Charme Allen released the videos and announced there would be no charges since she deemed the shooting justified under Tennessee laws covering self-defense and the defense of others.
In a response to the lawsuit, city attorneys said Thompson’s death “was caused by his own actions alone,” and that he wasn’t “initially compliant” when asked by officers to stand up and remove his hands from his hoodie pocket.
Held has emphasized that police moved in on Thompson so quickly that he had not time to explain he was holding a weapon or to safely remove his hands from his hoodie.
"We continue to hope for dialogue with KPD about concrete steps they could take to avoid killing our children in our schools in the future," Held wrote to Knox News. "So far, they have been unwilling to discuss this matter with us.”
Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knox County, school board removed from Anthony Thompson Jr. lawsuit
