The City Settles

Knoxville paid more than half a million dollars litigating and settling the lawsuit brought by the family of Anthony Thompson Jr., who was shot and killed by city police inside an Austin-East Magnet High School bathroom in 2021, Knox News has found.

A federal judge finalized the settlement Jan. 15. It canceled a scheduled jury trial in which officers would have had to defend why they did not provide medical care for Thompson, 17, as he lay dying at their feet on the bathroom floor.

In all, the city paid $579,327.40, according to figures provided to Knox News through a public records request.

• Litigation expenses: $1,624.00
• Private attorneys’ fees: $527,703.40
• Settlement: $50,000
  • Chanada Robinson, Thompson’s mother: $23,000
  • Margaret Held, Robinson’s attorney: $27,000

Each party agreed to pay its own expenses and attorney’s fees, according to court filings.

Held said she was not allowed to comment on the case due to the terms of the settlement agreement. A spokesperson for the city declined to comment for this report.

A federal appeals court allowed the family to sue over the narrow argument that police didn’t provide medical care to Thompson as he died. In an earlier ruling, a federal judge decided Thompson’s family could not sue over the officers’ use of force and whether his arrest was lawful, and the appeals court upheld that decision.

KPD’s own internal review noted the lack of immediate medical care.

The Sixth Circuit majority opinion from 2025 said there was enough evidence to ask a jury whether the officers “deliberately or recklessly disregarded Thompson’s objectively serious medical needs.”

“Although the officers were not required to exhaust every option to save Thompson’s life, they were also not permitted to stand idle, i.e., by attending other matters or sitting on Thompson’s bleeding body,” the opinion said.

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