2005 Campbell County High School shooting

On November 8, 2005, a school shooting occurred at Campbell County Comprehensive High School near Jacksboro, Tennessee. Earlier that day, school principal Gary Seale received information that 14-year-old freshman Kenneth Bartley Jr. was armed with a handgun. Seale confronted Bartley inside the administration office, where Bartley brandished a .22 caliber pistol, reportedly stating, "Yes, it's real. I'll show you. I never liked you anyway," before shooting Seale. Bartley then shot assistant principals Ken Bruce and Jim Pierce before being disarmed by another teacher in the office. Seale and Pierce were airlifted to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, while Bruce was treated at St. Mary's Hospital in LaFollette. Bruce later died of his wounds; Seale and Pierce survived with serious injuries. Bartley told investigators the gun belonged to his father and that he had stolen it intending to trade it for OxyContin.

Following the shooting, students were evacuated and police used dogs to search the school premises. The school closed for the remainder of the week and reopened the following Monday.

Bartley was charged with first-degree murder and was set to be tried as an adult. On April 10, 2007, as jury selection was beginning, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder, receiving a total sentence of 45 years with parole eligibility after 29 years. He soon sought to withdraw the plea; that request was denied, and a 2009 appeal was also rejected by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals. In October 2010, Bartley's attorney filed for post-conviction relief, arguing he had not had a meaningful opportunity to discuss the plea with his parents. Testimony at a June 2011 hearing indicated the original attorney had whispered the plea terms to Bartley without adequate advisement, and that Bartley decided within seconds without consulting his parents or therapist. Judge Kerry Blackwood vacated the guilty plea and ordered a new trial, a decision the Tennessee Attorney General's office appealed. In March 2013, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the order for a new trial.

Bartley was retried in February 2014, with a jury drawn from Hamilton County, Tennessee, and sequestered due to local publicity. On February 28, 2014, he was found guilty of reckless homicide in Bruce's death but acquitted of attempted first-degree murder charges related to Seale and Pierce; he was sentenced to time served.

Bartley subsequently faced a series of additional legal problems, including domestic assault and escape charges in 2014, a probation violation in 2015 that led to him living with a counselor in Virginia (whose young son later died while in Bartley's care, with Bartley not named a suspect), a 2018 trespassing charge, an assault charge on which a jury found him not guilty, and an aggravated assault charge involving a mallet, on which he was acquitted in January 2019. As of the source material, he faced further accusations of vandalism, assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest.