It has been 17 months since Tennessee deputies executed a search warrant and killed 18-year-old Daevon Montez Saint-Germain. Deputies shot the Black teenager after breaking into a home under circumstances his family considers questionable.
The Knox County Sheriff’s Office said it raided the home because deputies believed Saint-Germain was selling marijuana. Investigators based that belief partly on social media posts.
The posts showed the teen holding large amounts of cash in photos and videos.Less than two months later, authorities cleared the deputies of wrongdoing.
Saint-Germain’s family filed a lawsuit in December. That lawsuit remains pending.But officials have never released the names of the deputies involved.
They also have not released any body camera footage that may or may not exist. Then, last month, an unrelated case raised new questions. A grand jury indicted five current Knox County sheriff’s deputies on multiple felony charges.
Prosecutors accused them of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because the sheriff’s office has not identified the deputies from the raid, some of those indicted deputies could have participated.
It is also possible that all of them took part in the operation that left Saint-Germain dead.
Without the names of the deputies, the defendants are listed as John Does in the lawsuit filed by nationally renowned attorney Ben Crump and Tennessee attorney Troy B. Jones of the Jones Law Firm.
According to the lawsuit:
The search warrant in this case is void of probable cause.
The threadbare basis of this warrant to search was a cursory review of a teenager’s social media account.
While Daevon was still sleeping, Defendant Officers woke him up and forced him out of his bedroom to arrest him.
None of the John and Jane Doe Officers adequately announced themselves before fatally shooting Daevon Saint-Germain.
Defendant Officers shot him nine times without reason, cause, or excuse.
‘Killed as a Result of a No-knock Warrant’
The shooting took place around 7:20 a.m. on Jan. 3, 2025, after deputies broke into the home in a no-knock raid, according to Crump.
Deputies claimed they shot him in self-defense after he pulled out a rifle, but Crump says not only was the teen a legal and registered gun owner, they had already wrestled him down as he reached for the rifle.
“They can’t explain why they killed Daevon Saint-Germain. Their story keeps changing,” Crump told WBIR-TV last year.
“He was killed as a result of a no-knock warrant. Not just a no-knock warrant, but a flashbang no-knock warrant.”
Deputies say they found guns, cash, ammo, and marijuana from an indoor growing setup in the basement of the home but have not released any photos to the public confirming that allegation — even though the investigation is over.
The sheriff’s office said the deputies were not wearing body cameras, according to Knox News, which listed several instances where deputies claimed no bodycam footage existed only for that to later prove untrue.
The Knox News article says the department received body cameras in 2015.
“But since then, the sheriff’s office has a history of downplaying use of force captured on deputies’ bodycams,” the article states.
“And in one case from 2021, KCSO denied having bodycam video of a raid even though it had voluminous recordings. In another case from 2021, KCSO reported it had no video from an arrest, but later produced a video clip.”
The article lists several other examples of the sheriff’s office withholding bodycam footage from both defense attorneys and prosecutors over the years, so if that is the case here, then the investigation that cleared the deputies was flawed.
“Officials have failed to confirm whether bodycam footage of the (Saint-Germain) shooting exists, leaving his family searching for answers and accountability,” Crump stated on his website.
Indictments Against Deputies
Last month’s indictment against the five deputies also includes another five retired deputies, as well as a civilian, who are accused of conspiracy to commit theft of property over $250,000 and conspiracy to commit theft of services over $60,000.
The allegations span a period between 2010 and 2018. The current deputies indicted are Capt. Aaron Yarnell, Lt. Franklin “Rocky” Lowery, Sgt. Tim Isaacs, Capt. James Hammond, and Assistant Chief Deputy David Amburn.
“Last year, TBI agents began working alongside the FBI to review evidence gathered during a federal investigation launched in 2019 that centered around allegations of theft by nearly a dozen members of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) Narcotics Unit and Special Investigations Unit (SIU),” the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation stated in a press release last month.
“During the investigation, FBI agents gathered evidence alleging that numerous individuals used a KCSO Narcotics Unit credit card to purchase items for personal use, including electronics, hunting equipment, and home renovation materials.”
“The alleged purchases, made between 2010 and 2018, totaled well over $300,000. Investigators also learned that more than $30,000 in cash seized during undercover drug investigations was allegedly spent on personal expenses,” the press release continues.
‘He Was Just a Child’
The lawsuit filed in federal court on Dec. 30, 2025, accuses the sheriff’s office of violating Saint-Germain’s Fourth and 14th Amendment rights through excessive force that led to his wrongful death.
Crump also questioned why deputies did not approach the teen at school if they believed he was selling weed there, suggesting the decision may have been influenced by racism.
“They don’t do this in other communities,” Crump told WBIR-TV. “It is foreseeable that innocent people are going to get killed.”
“Can you imagine if this were a white family?” Crump continued.
“Can you imagine the outrage? Doesn’t he deserve your sympathy? Doesn’t he deserve your humanity?”
The shooting led to protests and left those who knew him in disbelief, including one of his best friends, Logan Butler, who remembered Daevon as one of the few students who befriended him at South-Doyle High School when he first moved to Tennessee.
“I originally moved here from Massachusetts about two years ago, and Daevon was one of the first people I had ever spoken to,” the then-17-year-old told Knox News during a protest last year outside a Knoxville City Council meeting.
Jessica Thompson remembered Saint-Germain working at Taco Bell and recording videos with his friend Logan.
“He was just a child,” she told local media last year, which described her as 40 years old.
“We were all touched by him at some point or in some aspect of our lives.”
A woman by the same name posted the following on Facebook shortly after the shooting.
“He was a great kid and violence is never the solution. He was respectful and should not have died from another interaction with police. There is no excuse for this outcome.”
