A pre-dawn shooting along Washington Pike in Knoxville ended with a 38-year-old man, Ernest Glenn, dead and a second man critically injured. Officers were first alerted about a shooting victim at the North Hills Apartments on Orchard Avenue at about 3:40 a.m. on December 19, 2024; while responding they found a vehicle crashed into a fence in the 2900 block of Washington Pike. Glenn was inside that vehicle, unresponsive and suffering at least one gunshot wound, and was pronounced dead at the scene. The other victim ran into the nearby apartment complex and was taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in critical but stable condition.

Investigators concluded the shooting likely occurred along Washington Pike and described the gunfire as targeted rather than random, but no motive was publicly established. The Knoxville Police Department Homicide Unit led the inquiry. Detectives later identified 21-year-old Kevin Martinez as a suspect, located him in Nashville, and arrested him at a Greyhound bus station on December 22, 2024. Martinez was charged with first-degree murder in Glenn’s death and aggravated assault for the other victim’s injuries; the case was listed as cleared by arrest in the department’s 2024 homicide records. It remains unclear whether any additional individuals were involved or what specifically precipitated the shooting.

If anyone has information about the early-morning events along Washington Pike or saw activity between Washington Pike and the North Hills Apartments that night, please share what was observed.