A 17-year-old student armed with a pistol opened fire Wednesday in a Nashville high school cafeteria, fatally shooting a 16-year-old student and wounding another student before killing himself, police said.
Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department, said the student who was injured was grazed in the arm by a bullet at Antioch High School, about 20 miles southeast of downtown of Nashville, and that he was being treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A student was also being treated for what Mr Aaron described as a facial injury caused by a fall.
The gunman fired several shots in the school cafeteria after 11 a.m., and an emergency call was received two minutes after the first shot, Mr. Aaron said. He provided no additional details about the shooter or the victims.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the shooter took the bus to school Wednesday morning, went to the bathroom to recover his weapon, then went to the cafeteria. The motive for the shooting is still unclear, but the chief said authorities are reviewing the shooter’s online information. It was unclear whether the shooting was targeted or not, Chief Drake said.
“As a city, as a community, it is incredibly difficult to be here once again, dealing with the devastation caused by gun violence,” said Mayor Freddie O’Connell.
