KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Warning: The above video and details in this article may be graphic and unsuitable for all viewers.
Over more than two hours Wednesday afternoon, Knox County District Attorney General Charme Allen presented key pieces of evidence gathered in the investigation into the April 12 fatal shooting at Austin-East High School involving four police officers and student Anthony Thompson Jr.
Here's a timeline of events that day which led up to the confrontation in a school bathroom about 3:15 p.m.
12:30 p.m. – A-E student Thompson, 17, gets into a physical fight at school with a female student he had dated.
12:48 p.m. - The pair clash again. The girl gets permission to go home. She tells her mother Regina Perkins what happened.
1:16 p.m. Perkins texts Thompson, and he responds with a flippant reply. Perkins warns Thompson in another text that she's on the phone with Knoxville police. Security footage at the school soon shows Thompson run through the school halls and go outside. At some point he goes back in, but re-exists and talks on the phone about 12 minutes. He goes back inside.
By 1:59 p.m., Thompson is back inside Austin-East, on the stairs.
1:59 p.m.: Perkins calls 911 to make a report of a domestic assault. Thompson "put his hands" on her daughter. He roughed her but, she said, but she didn't need an ambulance, the mother said. "Her feelings" had been hurt the most she said. Perkins tells the dispatcher he'd been known to carry a 9mm pistol. Thompson is still at school, she tells the dispatcher.
Thompson is spiraling "out of control," she says.
"I don't want my kid to be the next tragedy," she says.
2:12 p.m. – KPD Officer Jonathon Clabough responds to Perkins' home to speak with her and her daughter. Clabough talks to her about The Family Justice Center and finding a better person to date.
2:16 p.m. – Thompson enters the restroom.
2:23 p.m. – Thompson texts Perkins. She sends a picture back of the police car. Thompson denies hitting her daughter.
2:53 p.m. - Baldwin's body camera video shows officers arriving and walking into Austin-East. Baldwin, Clabough, Lt. Stan Cash and SRO Adam Willson meet and talk in the school's security room.
3:11 p.m. - Bodycam footage shows officers entering the bathroom with Willson in the lead. A scuffle breaks out as they try to arrest Thompson at a stall. Willson grabs Thompson's right wrist. The student has a Glock pistol. A shot from the gun goes off. Clabough fires two shots, one fatally hitting Thompson and one hitting Willson leg. Willson and Thompson go down to the ground with Willson on top, trying to ensure no officer gets shot.
Baldwin's camera falls to the floor. Cash's camera also falls off.
Police alert dispatch, "Officer down," meaning a police officer had been hit.
Authorities go to get help for Willson and for Thompson, who is rolled over onto his back. He's bleeding heavily, Allen said. A school nurse goes to Thompson. Thompson has suffered a gunshot wound that fatally injures his heart.
Meanwhile, another student who has been in the bathroom the whole time and who is a friend of Thompson's cries out and urges the police to help Thompson. Thompson, however, cannot be saved, Allen said.
