Published January 23. 2025 02:45PM
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A shooting in a Nashville high school cafeteria Wednesday left a female student dead and another student wounded, nearly two years after another deadly school shooting in the city ignited an emotional debate about gun control in Tennessee.
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 identified him as Solomon Henderson.
Police Chief John Drake said the shooter “confronted” student Josselin Corea Escalante, 16, in the cafeteria and opened fire, killing her.
The wounded student was grazed by a bullet. He 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.
Metro Nashville Police, federal and state agencies are examining “very concerning online writings and social media posts connected to 17-year-old Solomon Henderson” as they work to establish a motive, police said in a statement Wednesday evening.
Investigators at this point have not established a connection between Henderson and the victims, and police said the gunfire may have been random.
Two school resource officers were in the building when the shooting happened around 11 a.m., Aaron said. They were not in the 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 in Antioch, a neighborhood about 10 miles southeast of downtown Nashville.
Students wait to get off a bus at a unification site Wednesday after a shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn. AP PHOTO/GEORGE WALKER IV