One dead, one hurt in Austin-east High School shooting
A teenage boy was killed and a police officer wounded Monday afternoon in a shooting at Austin-east Magnet High School in Knoxville, police and sources told Knox News.
The Knoxville Police Department confirmed the fatality in an emailed statement, and confirmed the shooting without details on its Twitter account. The shooting occurred at about 3:15 p.m. A medical examiner's vehicle left the school about 5 p.m.
One source with direct knowledge of the incident who was not authorized to speak told Knox News the wounded police officer is the Austin-east school resource officer. He was shot in the hip, the source told Knox News.
The source also said one person was detained.
Knox County Schools Superintendent Bob Thomas tweeted at 4:20 p.m. that the school had been secured.
Austin-east will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Board of Education member Evetty Satterfield. Classes will not be held online, either.
Neither police nor school officials had taken questions from reporters, or confirmed the number of people shot or their conditions, as of 6:45 p.m. Monday. A press conference was scheduled for 8 p.m. (Go to knoxnews.com for realtime updates on this developing story.)
Police and emergency workers flooded the neighborhood around 3 p.m., and blocked off access to the school and parts of the neighborhood.
Knox County Schools established a reunification site at the baseball field behind the school near Wilson Avenue and Hembree Street for parents to connect with their children who attend the school.
In recent months, the shooting deaths of four Knoxville teens have become the rallying cry for community members pushing for an end to gun violence.
Justin Taylor, a 15-year-old Austineast student, died Jan. 27 after police say a 17-year-old boy accidentally shot him while they both were inside a car. Investigators quickly arrested the 17year-old on a charge of criminally negligent homicide.
Another teenager, 16-year-old Stanley Freeman Jr., was fatally shot on Tarleton Avenue while driving home after school on Feb. 12. Two teenage boys, ages 14 and 16, have been charged with killing him.
Janaria Muhammad, a 15-year-old freshman at Austin-east, was found shot outside the home where she lived on Selma Avenue on Feb. 16.
Jamarion "Lil Dada" Gillette, 15, died after being shot March 9. A woman found him wounded on Cherokee Trail in South Knoxville, near the University of Tennessee Medical Center, and took the teen to that hospital. He died there early on March 10.
Knoxville police have not announced any arrests, publicly identified any suspects or disclosed any possible motives in the shootings of Muhammad and Gillette. Police previously said they had no evidence to suggest the shootings of the teenagers were related.
In the emotional weeks after the deaths, the Knoxville City Council approved $1 million to help pay for violence prevention. A first contract, with the anti-violence group Cities United, was approved last week. Many applauded the first steps but say much more is needed to combat systemic issues like poverty and unequal education and economic opportunities that disproportionately harm people of color and low-income residents.