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, Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news conference.
The student who was wounded in the shooting suffered a graze, Aaron said.
A spokesperson for Vanderbilt University Medical Center told TV station News 2 that another student was taken to Vanderbilt Pediatrics for treatment of an eye injury that happened after the shooting.
Aaron said there were two school resource officers in the building when the shooting happened. They were not in the immediate vicinity of the cafeteria where the shooting took place, and by the time they got down there, the shooting had stopped and the shooter had used a handgun to kill 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.
School officials asked parents not to go to the high school to pick up their children but to go to a nearby hospital instead. Students were being bused there as they were released from the school by police.
At the hospital being used as a reunification center, officials were helping shocked parents to get back 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.”
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.
