Teen fatally shoots a female student and himself at high school, police say

TENNESSEE

Families wait as school buses arrive at a unification site following a shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., on Wednesday. One student and the shooter died. GEORGE WALKER IV — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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By Kristin M. Hall, Travis Loller and Jonathan Mattise

The Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. >> A female student was killed and another student was wounded Wednesday in a shooting in a Nashville high school cafeteria, nearly two years after another deadly school shooting in the city that 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” a 16-year-old female student in the cafeteria and opened fire, killing her. Police identified her as Josselin Corea Escalante. Drake said police are looking into a motive.

The male student who was wounded suffered a graze and 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.

There were two school resource officers in the building when the shooting happened around 11 a.m. CDT, Aaron said. They were not in the immediate 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 located in Antioch, a neighborhood about 10 miles southeast of downtown Nashville.

At a family safety center close to a hospital, officials were helping shocked parents to reunite with their children.

United Family Fellowship, a church located in Antioch, was hosting a vigil Wednesday night “for anyone in the community who needs a space to pray, process, and find comfort,” the church said on Facebook.

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 prior day. When he was stopped the following morning, officials found a loaded gun in his pants, police said.

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.