NASHVILLE, Tennessee, USA — A student was killed and another wounded Wednesday when they were shot in the cafeteria of a Nashville high school, nearly two years after a school shooting in the city that sparked an emotional debate over gun control in Tennessee. The attacker, a 17-year-old boy who was also a student at Antioch High School, later committed suicide, Metropolitan Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron said during a news conference. Police identified him as Solomon Henderson. Police Chief John Drake said the gunman “confronted” a 16-year-old student in the cafeteria and began shooting, causing her death. Police identified the student as Josselin Corea Escalante. Drake mentioned that police are investigating a motive and whether the shooter was specifically targeting the students he shot. The student who was injured suffered a graze and was treated and released from the hospital, Drake reported. Another student was taken to a hospital to treat a facial injury that occurred during a fall, Aaron said. There were two school resource officers in the building when the shooting occurred around 11 a.m. crazy time, Aaron said. They were not in the vicinity of the cafeteria and by the time they got there, the incident was over and the attacker had already committed suicide, Aaron added. The school has approximately 2,000 students and is located in Antioch, a Nashville neighborhood about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of downtown. At a family safety center near a hospital, officials helped shocked parents reunite with their children. Dajuan Bernard was waiting at a Mapco gas station to meet his son, a 10th grader, who was held in the auditorium with other students that Wednesday afternoon. He learned about the shooting from his son, who “was a little scared,” Bernard said. Her son was upstairs from where the shooting occurred, but told her he heard the shots. “He was fine and he let me know that everything was fine,” Bernard said. “This world is so crazy, it could happen anywhere. We just have to protect the children and educate them well to prevent them from even doing this. “That is the hardest part,” he commented. Fonda Abner, whose granddaughter is a student at the school, said Antioch High School does not have metal detectors that would alert school authorities to the presence of a weapon. She said her granddaughter had called her a couple of times, but she only heard commotion and thought it was an accidental call. They spoke briefly until the call was disconnected. “It’s nerve-wracking waiting out here,” Abner said. United Family Fellowship, a church located in Antioch, hosted a vigil Wednesday night “for anyone in the community who needs a space to pray, process and find comfort,” the church posted on its Facebook account. Hours earlier, Adrienne Battle, superintendent of Nashville schools, said public schools have implemented a “range of security measures,” including partnerships with police for school resource officers, security cameras with weapons detection software, installing shatter-resistant film for security windows and vestibules that are a barrier between outside visitors and the main entrance. “Unfortunately, these measures were not enough to stop this tragedy,” Battle said. He added that there are questions about whether stationary metal detectors should be considered. “Although previous research has shown them to have limitations and unintended consequences, we will continue to explore emerging technologies and strategies to strengthen school safety,” Battle said. In October, a 16-year-old Antioch High School student was arrested after school resource officers and school employees discovered through social media that he had brought a gun to school the day before. When he was detained the next morning, officers found a loaded gun in his pants, police said. Wednesday’s school shooting came nearly two years after a gunman began shooting at a separate private Nashville elementary school, killing six people, including three children. The tragedy sparked a months-long effort among hundreds of community organizers, families, protesters and many more pleading with lawmakers to consider passing gun control measures in response to the shooting. However, in a state dominated by Republicans, GOP lawmakers refused to do so. With the overwhelming Republican majority intact after the November elections, it is unlikely that lawmakers’ stance has changed enough to consider any significant bill addressing gun control. Instead, lawmakers have been more open to adding more security to schools, including passing a bill last year that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed firearms on public school grounds, and ban parents and other teachers to know who was armed. Antioch, a growing and diverse area of Nashville, has seen other shootings in recent years. A deadly 2017 shooting at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ killed one woman and injured seven people. And in 2018, an attacker killed four people at a Waffle House restaurant. State Rep. Shaundelle Brooks ran for office largely because of the death of her son in the Waffle House shooting and was elected last year after the Covenant shooting. She said the Antioch High School shooting reinforces the need for gun control reforms. “We must improve,” he asserted. “Since losing my son, Akilah, in a mass shooting in 2018, I have been fighting to ensure this never happens again,” the Nashville Democrat said in a statement. “Here we are almost 7 years later, and our communities are still affected by gun violence.” Samantha Dickerson had taken her 14-year-old son’s phone away as punishment, so when she received a message from his school about the shooting, she had no way to contact him. “I was nervous,” she said. “I was really about to collapse.” After about three hours of waiting, she finally received a call from her English teacher and spoke to her son. “When I heard his voice, I just started crying,” she said. ___ Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report. ___ This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
