A man was shot and killed by a Knoxville Police officer after a disturbance call led to a fatal confrontation in Fountain City, authorities confirmed.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is digging into the details of the Wednesday incident that spiraled into violence around 5:30 p.m. at an Exxon gas station on N. Broadway Knoxville Police who were responding to reports of a man causing a disturbance inside the store encountered the individual, allegedly armed with knives and behaving aggressively, according to the Knoxville Police Department's press release.
During the encounter, the police officer on the scene used his weapon, hitting the man at least once; the suspect was rushed to a nearby hospital and was later pronounced dead, the TBI disclosed without releasing the identities of either the officer or the deceased man.
Following the incident, which adds to a string of recent officer-involved shootings, the Knoxville Police Department has placed the officer on administrative leave this is standard practice pending the outcome of both the TBI's investigation and an internal review by the Office of Professional Standards, the standard protocol for such incidents as corroborated by authorities.
The findings of these investigations are awaited to offer clarity on the circumstances leading up to the shooting and to determine next steps in the process. The local community, meanwhile, has been left to grapple with the reverberations of another life lost in an encounter with law enforcement.
