KNOXVILLE, Tenn. >> The killings came in rapid succession.

On a cold night in late January, a high school football player was found unconscious and bleeding from a single gunshot wound. Two weeks later, a 16-year-old student was killed by what the authorities said may have been a stray bullet. Four days after that, a co-captain of the dance team was shot dead. In early March, a 15-year-old who last attended classes in the fall died from gunshot wounds.

And last week, Anthony Thompson Jr., 17, was shot and killed by a police officer in a brief scuffle inside a cramped bathroom on the same campus, becoming the fifth student at Austin-East Magnet High School this year to die of gun violence.

The shooting death of Thompson, who the authorities said fired a pistol and struck a trash can in the bathroom moments before he was killed, echoed a series of violent confrontations between African Americans and law enforcement officers. But it also stirred an all-too-familiar anguish in a community that residents said has been gripped in an epidemic of gun violence besieging its young people.

“These kids are losing their lives left and right for no reason,” said Kiara Taylor, 21, whose brother, Justin, the football player, was killed in what the authorities described as an accidental shooting. “It makes it harder to get out of the house every day knowing another child has lost their life.”

In several of the shootings, teenagers as young as 14 have been arrested.

The authorities said the confrontation with Thompson escalated because he was armed. In shaky videos recorded by police officers’ body cameras, the officers are seen reaching for their guns, with one opening fire. A classmate, pinned to the tile floor by another officer, sees the seeping blood and cries out: “Help him! Please, help him!” An autopsy showed Thompson was pierced in the heart and lungs by a single bullet.

The shooting, a video of which prosecutors here released this week after sustained community pressure, unfolded in the midst of the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer recently convicted of killing George Floyd.

But here, much of the community’s outrage over Thompson’s death was rooted in broader fears that a climate of violence has woven itself into the lives of its young people.

Knoxville, a city of lush hills situated along the Tennessee River with about 188,000 residents, recorded 37 homicides last year, one of the deadliest years in the city’s modern history. The City Council recently approved a $1 million proposal to fund programs that intend to stem gun violence.

“I think that this city is reeling,” said Knox County District Attorney General Charme Allen. “I think that the fact we’ve had five deaths of high school students means that clearly somewhere something is wrong. It’s unacceptable.”

At a recent community talent show, girls performed dances they learned from TikTok in T-shirts that memorialized one classmate. In protests, they sat on the hoods of their friends’ cars, chanting “Black youth matter” and singing along to songs by rapper Lil Baby being blared from the speakers.

“They’re angry,” Jacqueline Muhammad, whose 15-year-old daughter, Janaria, was the co-captain of the school’s dance team, said of her child’s friends and classmates. “They’re hurt. They’re tired. And I hope and pray that no one else has to get hurt.”

Austin-East, an arts magnet school with about 640 students, the majority of whom are Black, has been a reflection of the East Knoxville community’s pride — but also of its struggles. The streets surrounding the school are dotted with overgrown lots and abandoned storefronts, evidence, residents say, of neglect and the entrenched poverty pervading the neighborhood.

The school draws its students mostly from those East Knoxville neighborhoods, and residents describe it as an anchor for the community. Students and parents like to boast about the dance and arts programs.

But they also complain of outdated textbooks and a shortage of counselors. And in a community that has seen an uptick in crime in recent years, Muhammad said students were acquainted with deadly violence well before the recent fatal shootings.

Knox County Schools declined to comment on the shootings, but officials said that counseling and other services were available.

The community’s anger and sorrow built up as the killings continued. Justin Taylor was killed Jan. 27 after the police found him in a car at a ministry center with a gunshot wound; a 17-year-old boy has been charged with criminally negligent homicide in his death.

Then, Stanley Freeman Jr., 16, was fatally shot in his car Feb. 12 as he was driving home, the police said. A 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy face first-degree murder charges, officials said.

Four days later, Janaria Muhammad was found unconscious with a gunshot wound. Jamarion Gillette, who officials said had not been to school since September, was fatally shot on March 9.

Over the past week, Thompson’s name has been added to a list displayed on posters and chanted in demonstrations: a collection of young people killed by gunfire.

Dozens gathered recently in a park down the street from Austin-East, and families shared stories of the relatives they had lost.

Kiara Taylor, Justin Taylor’s older sister, called her brother an “entrepreneur” who regularly woke up early to mow lawns for money. “He was very ambitious,” she said. “It’s very important to me that that lives on, that people know that about him, that people know he was a good student. Austin-East is not full of bad kids.”

The group took a meandering path through East Knoxville, carrying banners and wearing shirts commemorating those who had been killed. They passed homes with signs declaring school pride. “Pray for A.E. to be strong,” one said.

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