MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A man suspected of trying to enter a Jewish school with a gun in Memphis, Tennessee, on Monday and firing shots outside the building has been charged with multiple crimes, the lead agency looking into the shooting said Wednesday.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Joel Bowman, 31, of Stanton, Tennessee, was charged with criminal attempted second-degree murder, reckless endangerment, possessing a firearm during the commission or attempt to commit a dangerous felony, carrying weapons on school property, and assault against a first responder.
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Bowman remained hospitalized in Memphis as of Wednesday, the bureau said. Officers shot Bowman after finding his truck soon after he left the school, and he was hospitalized in critical condition, police said at the time. Bowman had exited the truck with a firearm in hand, and the “situation escalated,” the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday.
A message left at one phone listing for Bowman wasn’t immediately returned, and a second phone listing rang unanswered. Representatives of the prosecutor’s office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation didn’t immediately respond to an email asking if Bowman had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Bowman had tried to enter Margolin Hebrew Academy-Feinstone Yeshiva of the South on Monday afternoon but was denied entrance into the building, the bureau said. He fired several shots and then left in a maroon pickup truck, police have said.
No one at the school was injured. Classes were not in session, and limited staff and construction workers were present, a security official said.