Timberview High shooter serving 12 years faces new charges; defense argues double jeopardy

Timothy Simpkins, the convicted Timberview High School shooter who’s currently serving a 12-year sentence, faces additional charges connected with the October 2021 shooting that wounded a teacher and two students, according to Tarrant County court records and his attorneys.

Simpkins, now 20, was found guilty of attempted capital murder in July 2023. The jury considered a sentence range of between five to 99 years or life before ultimately deciding on 12 years with the possibility of parole after six.

On the morning of Oct. 6, 2021, 15-year-old Zacchaeus Selby entered an English class that was already in progress at the Mansfield ISD school. Instead of going to his assigned seat, he charged to the back of the room where Simpkins was sitting. The two boys fought, and Simpkins took a beating, eyewitnesses said at his trial.

Two coaches separated the teens, and saw Simpkins held a gun pointed at Selby. Simpkins shot Selby once, and then again as the 15-year-old crawled on his back toward a stairwell, according to testimony and video. Simpkins fired on Selby six times.

Another student was grazed by a bullet. A teacher who arrived to help break up the fight, Calvin Pettitt, was shot in the back when he turned to run after learning Simpkins had a gun. All three of the shooting victims survived.

Simpkins took the witness stand before his sentence was handed down and apologized to Pettitt and Shaniya McNeely, the student who was grazed, by name. He didn’t refer to Selby in his apology.

“I’m truly, truly sorry,” Simpkins said. “There’s nothing I can say to justify my actions. I’m sorry.”

Now the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office has charged Simpkins with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of unlawfully carrying a weapon in a prohibited place in connection with the shooting, according to court documents.

A Tarrant County grand jury indicted Simpkins on these charges April 9. The case is scheduled to go to trial May 16, but Simpkins’ attorney Lesa Pamplin said the defense hasn’t had time to prepare.

“We totally didn’t see this coming,” Pamplin told the Star-Telegram when reached by phone Friday.

Pamplin said Simpkins’ attorneys are angered by the new charges and plan to fight them.

Two of the aggravated assault victims mentioned in the April 9 indictment were listed as Pettitt, the teacher who was shot in the back, and McNeely, the student who was grazed by a bullet. A third individual who wasn’t part of the original case against Simpkins was also listed.

Simpkins already stood trial for shooting Pettitt and McNeely as part of the attempted capital murder case, his attorneys argue, and according to the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment, Simpkins can’t be tried for those offenses a second time.

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On the morning of May 7, defense attorney MarQuetta Clayton filed a plea of double jeopardy based on prior conviction and a motion to dismiss the indictment based on multiple punishments for the same crime.

Late that afternoon, an amended indictment was filed against Simpkins. The document lists two other individuals who were present but not injured at Timberview at the time of the shooting as victims of assault in place of Pettitt and McNeely. The indictment alleges Simpkins threatened the additional victims by firing the gun in their presence.

Pamplin said the prosecution could have included the additional victims and the charge of carrying a weapon in a prohibited place during the original trial instead of waiting until now.

“That’s not the way things are done,” Pamplin said.

According to Pamplin, prosecutors with the district attorney’s office didn’t get the life sentence they wanted for Simpkins last year, and now they are going to try again.

“Vindictiveness,” she said. “That’s all I can say.”

The district attorney’s office did not immediately return a request for comment on why it is seeking to try Simpkins on additional charges.

Simpkins is currently awaiting trial on one count of aggravated assault and two counts of deadly conduct related to a shooting that took place at an Arlington RaceTrac gas station on Sept. 26, 2021, just 10 days before the Timberview shooting. The high school is also located in the city of Arlington but is part of the Mansfield school district.

Simpkins testified at his July 2023 trial that he was smoking marijuana inside a car at RaceTrac with three others, including Selby’s older brother. Two of them hit Simpkins on the back of the head with a gun and stole his marijuana and cash, he said. Simpkins fired a handgun at the car the two left in, he said.

A Tarrant County grand jury indicted Simpkins on the aggravated assault and deadly conduct charges in August 2023. The district attorney’s office has filed a motion to consolidate the Sept. 26 offenses with the new charges that have been filed against him in the school shooting so they would go to trial at the same time.

The DA’s office has also requested that Simpkins receive cumulative sentences if found guilty, meaning any new sentence would begin after his current sentence is finished instead of running concurrently, according to court records.