Recently released bodycam footage of the fatal police shooting of Anthony J. Thompson Jr. shows that another student was in the school’s bathroom where the incident took place.
“What are you doing? He’s bleeding,” the student cried out, WBIR reports. The teen’s pleas for cops to help Thompson came after an 11-second struggle to retrieve a gun Thompson was allegedly concealing. District Attorney General Charme Allen held a two-hour press conference last Wednesday where the bodycam footage from the April 12 shooting was first released.
“None of them in their statements say they thought he had it at school,” Allen confirmed when asked if the responding officers knew Thompson had a gun on him. The cops involved had arrived at Austin-East Magnet High School after the mother of Thompson’s
girlfriend, Regina Perkins, called the cops on him to report a physical altercation he had with her daughter Alexus Page. The mother has since expressed her regret for calling the police who ended up fatally shooting the teenager.Upon arriving at the scene, the school’s resource officer Adam Wilson asked, “Hey who’s in here?” as he entered the restroom. He approached Thompson calmly, asking, “Hey Anthony, how you doin’ man?” However, once the officers noticed the teen had his hands in his pocket with a gun, the situation escalated into a scuffle.
It ended with Thompson lying shot on the floor while handcuffed. It took four-and-a-half minutes before medical help arrived. When a school nurse cut off Thompson’s backpack and jacket to administer CPR, that’s when cops finally uncuffed him. When the teen was flipped over, cops noticed all the blood Thompson had lost.
“Basically, the bullet we know entered here from the jacket, it traveled through his body,” Allen explained. “It basically went through both lungs and went through the bottom of his heart.”
A medical examiner described the life-ending injury as “devastating.” Thompson’s family wanted authorities to wait until after his funeral to release the bodycam footage. However, it was released on the same day. They have expressed their disagreement with Allen’s decision to not press charges against the officers, WBIR reports.