Knoxville teenager hailed as a hero after shielding 3 friends from gunshots

Zaevion Dobson is being remembered as a loving friend, son, mentor, and hero.

The 15-year-old from Knoxville, Tennessee, died after he shielded three teenage girls from gunshots on Thursday night as they walked back from playing basketball at a recreation center, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. Investigators say they do not believe the Fulton High School sophomore was the intended target of the shooting; police say that Brandon Perry and Christopher Drone Bassett drove with another man to the area and fired at the teenagers. "Most children that age would have ran," neighbor Denitra Cash told the News Sentinel. "He didn't. He saved lives." Cash said that Dobson and his brothers had been raised to be the "kind of boys who get up and go to church, get up and go to school, you don't have to pressure them to do the right thing."

Dobson was a starting linebacker on the varsity football team and a mentor with the Emerald Youth Foundation, and his friends took to social media to tell his story using the hashtag #rememberhisname, ensuring that no one will forget the sacrifice he made. Ben Conaway, the athletic director at Fulton High School, recalls Dobson as someone who "treated people really well and loved on his friends a lot and was a joy to be around."

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