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A shooting at a Tennessee high school on Wednesday sent shockwaves through the community and left many clamoring for answers and gun reform.
Once the chaos subsided at Antioch High School near Nashville, two students were left dead, including a teenage girl and the suspected shooter himself. Two other students were injured, one from a bullet graze and the other not from the gunfire, but from a fall.
Metro Nashville Public Schools Director Adrienne Battle called it a “heartbreaking day” for Antioch High, Metro Nashville Police Department, and the greater Nashville community – whose residents are all too familiar with the scourge of gun violence.
Nearly two years prior, three 9-year-old students and three adult staff members were killed in a shooting at The Covenant School, a private elementary school in Nashville.
“My heart goes out to these families as they face unimaginable loss,” Battle said.
The investigation is still underway, but here’s what to know so far:
‘Didn’t know what to do’:Tennessee students describe chaos in fatal high school shooting
The shooting occurred shortly after 11 a.m. local time at Antioch High School, about 17 miles southeast of downtown Nashville, according to police.
Drake said the suspect, identified as Solomon Henderson, 17, rode the bus to Antioch High School Wednesday morning before making his way to the cafeteria, where he confronted and fatally shot a fellow student. The shooter fired several rounds before turning the gun on himself, Drake said.
The school’s two resource officers were present in the building, but not in the cafeteria at the time of the shooting and were not able to intervene before the shooter turned the gun on himself, police spokesman Don Aaron told media.
The suspected shooter was an active student at the school and was found dead at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.
Metro Nashville Police Department Chief John Drake said it was not clear if the shooting was targeted. As authorities seek to determine a motive behind the attack, Drake said police are investigating some online “materials” connected to the suspect.
That includes a 300-page document professing alleged alt-right extremist views about “race mixing,” Drake said. The document also includes statements praising Adolf Hitler and pages of explicit photos from previous school shootings, Drake said, according to the Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network.
The other student killed in the shooting was identified by police as Josselin Corea Escalante, 16.
A male student who was injured suffered a graze and fourth student was transported to the hospital for minor facial injuries from a fall, according to police.
Worried parents rushed to the school as the news spread, jamming nearby roads as they desperately tried to navigate police blockades. By 1 p.m., more than 100 had gathered at the reunification site about a half mile from the school as buses full of students arrived.
Tinashae Smith, a ninth-grader at the high school later recalled the incident, saying she was in class when pandemonium broke out. After an intercom announcement, Smith’s class quickly hid under their desks and blocked the door with tables, desks, and chairs.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. Everything was just so bad,” Smith said. “I would never want to experience this ever again in my lifetime.”
Antioch High School will be closed for the rest of the week “to allow time for students and staff to grieve” in the wake of the shooting, Battle said.
The school district is also arranging grief counseling.
An interfaith, multi-racial and multi-lingual audience of students, community leaders and local clergy gathered Wednesday night at Antioch’s Hamilton United Methodist Church within hours of the shooting, which happened a couple miles away.
Antioch High students and grief counselors attended the event, some of whom consoled each other after the vigil ended.
The White House said in a statement that it was monitoring the shooting.
“The President and his team are monitoring the news out of Nashville,” the statement read. “As details unfold, the White House offers its heartfelt thoughts and prayers to those impacted by this senseless tragedy and thank the brave first responders responding to the incident.”
Voices for a Safer Tennessee, a nonprofit formed in the fallout of the Covenant School shooting, has advocated for gun reform in Tennessee.
In a statement, Voices said the group was “devastated” to learn about the Antioch shooting.
“Our hearts break for the students, families and staff impacted by this tragedy,” the statement said in part. “Schools should be safe spaces where children can learn and grow without fear of violence. We also stand alongside the families of victims and survivors of mass shootings who are continually retraumatized when news of yet another shooting breaks.”
Contributing: Evan Mealins, Kirsten Fiscus, Diana Leyva, Austin Hornbostel, Melissa Brown, Craig Shoup, Vivian Jones, Liam Adams, Andy Humbles and George Robinson, Nashville Tennessean
