More than eight months after a raid that left a Henderson man dead, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) won’t disclose details about the case, while the local police department says they weren’t made aware of the raid until after it happened.
FBI agents shot and killed Theodore Deschler (pictured above) at his mother’s home where he lived in August of last year.
The circumstances surrounding his death remain murky. This week, The Tennessee Star followed up with the law enforcement entities involved in the deadly raid, but details remain hard to come by.
The Star asked the FBI what transpired before Theodore Deschler’s death.
“We don’t discuss tactics, techniques or the way we operate,” Memphis FBI Chief Division Counsel and Public Affairs Officer Joel Siskovic said. “That’s not a question we would ever answer.”
Meanwhile, Henderson Police Chief Gary Davidson said his department was not made aware of the raid until after it occurred.
“The incident you are referring to back in August of last year, the Henderson Police Department was only made aware of after the incident occurred,” he told The Star. “Our dispatch was notified that the FBI needed assistance, this was after the incident had occurred, and we were asked to close the street in front of the residence so that they could control the scene to launch their investigation.”
He said the Henderson Police Department only did traffic control after the raid and that the FBI has not followed up to brief him on the incident.
In the wake of his death, Theodore Deschler’s family was puzzled by the events that led up to his death.
At the time, Theodore Deschler’s brother, Russell Deschler, said that he believed his brother was unarmed at the time of his killing.
He also claimed that at least one FBI agent could be seen shooting inside the home through a garage window and claimed that from the agent’s vantage point, he would not have been able to see his brother, who was standing in the kitchen at the time.
“We believe they broke the windows of the garage so they could shoot,” Russell Deschler said. “He didn’t have a weapon on him. He was just trying to get out of the house because it was filled with tear gas.”
“The height of the door and where Teddy was standing when they shot him and killed him, you couldn’t see if he was armed or not. And you know he wasn’t, because if you look at the door you could see where his hands were full of blood and went down the door,” he added.
Theodore Deschler did have a long criminal history, including charges for violent crimes, including Aggravated Assault and Assault With A Deadly Weapon Without Intent To Kill.
He was arrested in a stabbing at a gas station in Selmer last May and booked into the McNairy County Jail.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter/X.
Photo “Theodore Deschler” by Selmer Police Department.
