What We Know About the Fatal Shooting of an LGBTQ Student Leader in Georgia

The president of a student-run LGBTQ pride group at Georgia Tech was fatally shot by a police officer on the school's campus Saturday night, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Campus police confronted Scout Schultz—a non-binary 21-year-old who was a fourth-year student at Tech—after receiving a 911 call alerting them to "a person with a knife and a gun," according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). The officers found Schultz outside a parking deck with a folded pocket knife in their hand, but no firearm, police told the Journal-Constitution. In graphic footage of the incident taken from a nearby dorm, several officers surround Schultz, guns raised, as the student approaches them, hands by their sides.

"Come on man, let's drop the knife," one officer tells Schultz in the video, backing away from the student.

"Shoot me," Schultz yells, approaching the officer.

Schultz continues to walk toward the cops as the police order them to stop moving. "Drop it!" an officer screams. Schultz takes three steps forward and the officer fires, striking Schultz and sending them to the ground. They were taken to a local hospital for emergency treatment and died early Sunday morning after being shot in the chest, hitting their heart, the Washington Post reports.

Schultz's father told CNN affiliate WGCL he and his wife "don't really know what happened" and have hired an attorney as they continue "gathering facts." Both have questioned why the campus police officer involved ended up fatally shooting their child.

"Why didn't they use some nonlethal force, like pepper spray or Tasers?" Schultz's mother asked the Journal-Constitution. Georgia Tech campus police reportedly don't carry Tasers, but are equipped with pepper spray.

The 21-year-old served as the president of Georgia Tech's Pride Alliance, a student-run LGBTQ group on campus, and identified as "bisexual, non-binary, and intersex," according to their profile on the group's website. Schultz's mother told the Journal-Constitution she didn't think gender issues factored into what happened on Saturday night, but said that the student had struggled with depression from a young age and attempted to hang themselves two years ago. On the whole, Schultz's mother said, they "spent more time being fine than not fine."

The GBI said it will conduct an autopsy of Schultz's body and mount an independent investigation into the shooting. Once the investigation is complete, the Bureau will hand its findings over to the Fulton County District Attorney's office, which will decide whether or not to charge the officer involved.

The Pride Alliance and Georgia Tech's Progressive Student Alliance will hold a vigil for Schultz on campus Monday night, inviting students and community members to "share memories of their beautiful life" and place flowers where they were shot.

"We are distraught over the loss of Scout Schultz," the groups wrote on a Facebook page for the vigil. "They were an incredible, inspirational member of our community and a constant fighter for human rights."

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

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