Nashville school shooting: Racist, extremist writings possibly tied to shooter
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Investigators are reviewing "very concerning online writings and social media posts" believed to be connected to the shooter who killed a 16-year-old student and wounded another in a Tennessee high school cafeteria on Wednesday.
Anti-hate analysts quickly identified dozens of pages believed to have come from the shooter, 17-year-old Solomon Henderson.
Racist and extremist ideologies
Dig deeper:
The writings that are believed to be made by Henderson were filled with calls for violence and racist comments, including neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies.
Henderson also expressed his shame of being Black and praised specific people who carried out other well-known shootings.
None of the writings mentioned the student who Henderson shot and killed, 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante. Escalante was Hispanic.
Police revealed on Thursday that an additional 288-page document is also under investigation.
The day of the shooting
Aerial footage above Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, following a shooting inside the cafeteria where three students were injured, including the gunman. (WTVF)
The backstory:
Henderson shot and killed Escalante in the cafeteria of Antioch High School, located in Nashville, on Wednesday shortly after 11 a.m. ET.
He injured another male student before turning the gun on himself, police said. A third student was taken to a hospital for treatment of a facial injury that happened during a fall.
Investigators said Henderson fired 10 shots from a 9 mm pistol within 17 seconds of entering the cafeteria. The pistol was loaded with nine rounds when it was recovered by police.
The gun was bought by someone in Arizona in 2022 and it was not reported stolen, police said. The gun’s origins are still under investigation.
Investigators have not yet established a connection between Henderson and the victims, and police said the gunfire may have been random, according to a statement.
Gun violence and schools
Local perspective:
In October, a 16-year-old Antioch High School student was arrested after school resource officers and school officials discovered through social media that he had taken a gun to school the day prior. When he was stopped the following morning, officials found a loaded gun in his pants, police said.
And just hours after the Antioch shooting, an 18-year-old student at another Nashville school, McGavock High School, was arrested Wednesday for having a handgun in his backpack while playing basketball in the gym after school, police said. The student said the gun didn’t belong to him and he didn’t know it was in his backpack.
GOP lawmakers in the Republican-dominant state have long refused to consider taking up gun control measures, even after a wave of demonstrations and requests from families and advocates following the Covenant shooting. 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.
The Source: Information for this article was gathered from previous reporting by LiveNOW from FOX and The Associated Press. This story was reported from Los Angeles.