A 17-year-old boy armed with a pistol opened fire in a Nashville high school cafeteria on Wednesday, fatally shooting one female student and another before killing himself, police said. Wounded.
The injured student was shot in the arm at Antioch High School, about 20 miles southeast of downtown Nashville, and was treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department. What was I going to do? A male student was also being treated for what Mr. Aaron described as a facial injury, although it was not the result of a gunshot.
The gunman fired multiple shots into the school’s cafeteria just after 11 a.m., with an emergency call coming in two minutes after the first shot, Mr. Aaron said. They did not provide any additional details about the shooter or the victims. Officials say they don’t know a motive for the shooting.
One student, who gave his name only as Ahmed, told Nashville TV station WSMV that he was in the cafeteria when the shooting started. He and his friends hid behind piles of trash before they could make it to the soccer field as they passed victims who had been shot and were bleeding on the ground.
“I wish I could save them,” he said. “I feel so much pain and sadness and depression knowing that I can’t do anything to help them, just watching them get shot like that in front of my face.”
Metro Nashville Public Schools said The high school was on lockdown around noon local time. Officials had set up a reunification area for the parents.
“I join Tennesseans in praying for the victims, their families and the school community,” Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, added in a post on social media after he was briefed on the incident.
In Nashville, trauma is still lingering from the 2023 shooting at Covenant School, the deadliest school shooting in state history. A former student stormed the campus of a private school, killing three 9-year-old students and three staff members before police shot and killed the assailant.
But even after thousands of protesters flooded the halls of the state capitol, joined by some parents of student survivors in calls for stricter gun laws, the Republican majority in the Tennessee General Assembly refused to change the laws. has done
“Schools should be safe places where children can learn and grow without fear of violence,” Voices for a Safer Tennessee said in a statement, calling for gun restrictions in the wake of the Covenant school shooting. is an organization established.
In 2024, over the objections of parents and many Democratic lawmakers in Nashville, lawmakers approved legislation allowing teachers to carry a concealed handgun.
Support for expanding school resource officers has been gained: Metro Council voted in December. To approve a $3.9 million grantHowever, staff shortages have prevented many of these schools from hiring officers. Two student resource officers were on campus but not around at the time of the shooting, police spokesman Mr. Haroon said. When they arrived, the shooting was over.
Charlene Oliver, a state senator who represents the district that includes Antioch High School, said in a statement that she was “heartbroken over the devastating shooting.”
“As a mother and representative of this community, I grieve with the families, students and staff who are enduring this unimaginable tragedy,” she said. “No child should ever feel unsafe in their school, and no family should have to endure the grief of such a senseless loss.”
