Autopsy results due today on Iraq War veteran shot by law officers Thursday
By Iva Butler | (ivab@thedailytimes.com)
The Maryville Police Department will release today the results of an autopsy performed Friday at University of Tennessee Medical Center on Theodore “T.J.” Jones IV, the 27-year-old man who died after a shootout with officers early Thursday morning.
Maryville Police Chief Tony Crisp said he also will provide additional information about the incident, including the names of the two Maryville officers and one Blount County deputy involved in the shooting.
Jones was a reconnaissance sniper with the Marines in the Iraq war, serving as a lance corporal with the II Military Expeditionary Force, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Division. According to his family, he was an excellent shot.
Jones received minor injuries from an improvised explosive device (IED) blast during his service in Iraq and was on disability. The veteran, a 2004 graduate of Maryville High School, was within a block of his family home when he was killed. He lived with his parents Theodore “Theo” Jones III and Vickie Jones.
The late T.J. Jones and his wife have one young daughter and an unborn child on the way.
His father said his son suffered from flashbacks from the war and lost his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Maryville police were notified of shots fired in the Jett Road area off East Broadway Avenue at 2:39 a.m. Thursday. A few seconds after that, a motorist near Lowe’s Drug on East Broadway reported being shot at. Shots also were fired at a police cruiser traveling east on East Broadway. The shooter then forcibly entered a vacant house that had previously served as a florist at 1811 East Broadway.
Crisp said Jones shot through a side window at police at that time. Jones reportedly had a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol with seven bullets in the clip.
The chief said two Maryville officers attempted early on to negotiate a surrender with Jones while he was barricaded inside the house.
One was department negotiator Lt. Michael Braden and the other was Officer D.J. Porter, who had attended school with Jones and knew him.
“That went on several minutes, with Jones being high and low through them. The negotiations were not a successful event,” Crisp said.
Eventually, Jones came out onto East Broadway with the pistol in his hand, refused orders to drop his weapon and was shot by officers. He later died at University of Tennessee Medical Center.
