NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A female student was killed and another student was wounded Wednesday in shooting in a Nashville high school cafeteria, police said.
The 17-year-old shooter, who was also a student at Antioch High School, later shot and killed himself with a handgun, Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news conference.
Police Chief John Drake said the shooter “confronted” a 16-year-old female student in the cafeteria and opened fire, killing her. Drake said police are looking into a motive and whether the students who were shot were targeted.
The male student who was wounded suffered a graze, and was treated and released from the hospital, Drake said. Another student was taken to a hospital for treatment of a facial injury that happened during a fall, Aaron said.
There were two school resource officers in the building when the shooting happened around 11 a.m. CDT, Aaron said. They were not in the immediate vicinity of the cafeteria, and by the time they got down there, the shooting was over and the gunman had killed himself, Aaron said.
The school has about 2,000 students and is located in Antioch, a neighborhood about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of downtown Nashville.
At a family safety center close to a hospital, officials were helping shocked parents to reunite with their children.
Dajuan Bernard was waiting at a Mapco service station to reunite with his son, a 10th grader, who was being held in the auditorium with other students on Wednesday afternoon. He first heard of the shooting from his son who “was a little startled,” Bernard said. His son was upstairs from where it took place but said he heard the gunfire.
“He was OK and let me know that everything was OK,” Bernard said.
“His mom wants to homeschool anyway, so I don’t know. We might consider it,” he said. “This world is so crazy, it could happen anywhere. We’ve just got to protect the kids, and raise the kids right to prevent them from even doing this. That’s the hardest part.”
Fonda Abner, whose granddaughter is a student at the school, said Antioch High does not have metal detectors that would alert officials to the presence of a gun. Abner was waiting to reunite with her as students were bussed from the school to the family safety center.
“It’s nerve-wracking waiting out here,” she said. Her granddaughter had called her a couple of times but she only heard commotion and thought it was a pocket dial. They spoke briefly before being cut off.
“I’m 60 years old, and I can remember when you had a dispute, fought it out, you were friends next week — two weeks later," Abner said. "Nowadays, these kids are just wanting to end somebody’s life. This is just ridiculous the way kids are handling situations now.”
Wednesday’s school shooting comes nearly two years after a shooter opened fire at a separate Nashville private elementary school and killed six people, including three children.
The tragedy prompted a monthslong 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 Republican-dominant state, GOP lawmakers refused to do so. With the Republican supermajority intact after November’s election, it’s unlikely attitudes have changed enough to consider any meaningful bills that would address 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 handguns on public school grounds, and bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed.
Antioch has endured other prominent shootings in recent years. A 2017 fatal shooting at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ killed one woman and wounded seven people. And in 2018, a shooter killed four people at a Waffle House.
