Police review writings tied to Nashville shooter who killed female student

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The investigation into why a Nashville high school student fatally shot a classmate before killing himself has centered on his online writings, which authorities describe as concerning warning signs. Dozens of pages posted on social media accounts that anti-hate analysts believe belonged to the gunman include racist ideologies and plans for the shooting.

Solomon Henderson, a Black 17-year-old student at Antioch High School, shot and killed Josselin Corea Escalante, who was 16 and Hispanic, in the school’s cafeteria on Wednesday, then turned the gun on himself.

The shooting has left Tennessee’s capital city once again grappling with the fallout of a tragic school shooting. Nearly two years prior, a shooter opened fire at a private elementary school in Nashville and killed six people, including three children.

Anti-hate analysts quickly identified dozens of pages believed to have come from Henderson, filled with calls for violence and racist comments, including neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies, expressions of shame that he was Black, and praise for specific people who carried out well-known shootings.

The writings also include plans for the school shooting but do not name Escalante as a target.

Police revealed Thursday that an additional 288-page document is also under investigation.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism issued an analysis of the shorter document, saying it appears to be authentic. The analysis came after cross-referencing its content with social media sites believed to be his, said Carla Hill, the center’s senior director of investigative research.

Jared Holt, a Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who focuses on hate and extremism in the U.S., said it’s not unheard of for white supremacist movements to attract people of color.

“At least in my experience, this is probably the most extreme case of this I’ve seen today,” said Holt, who also analyzed the document and believes it to be Henderson’s.

While local law enforcement has been tight-lipped about the specifics of Henderson’s writings, they confirmed Thursday that he fired 10 shots from a 9 mm pistol within 17 seconds of entering the cafeteria. The pistol was loaded with nine rounds when recovered by police, authorities said.

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.

The circulation of Henderson’s purported writings comes in stark contrast to the lengthy legal challenges surrounding the 2023 Covenant School shooting. A request for police to release that gunman’s private writings became a complex fight that pitted the parents of traumatized students against a coalition of local news outlets, nonprofits, and a Republican lawmaker. A Tennessee judge last year sided with the parents and ruled the shooter’s writing cannot be released. The legal battle remains ongoing.

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.

A student who was grazed by a bullet Wednesday was treated and released from the hospital. Another student was taken to a hospital for treatment of a facial injury that happened during a fall.

Nashville school officials have faced questions about why new technology that uses a school’s cameras and AI capabilities to detect weapons didn’t trigger a warning on Wednesday. The lack of metal detectors has also been brought into focus, and while Superintendent Adrienne Battle has said there are pros and cons to metal detectors, she said nothing is off the table.

“Based on the shooter’s location and proximity to the cameras, it wasn’t close enough to get an accurate read and to activate that alarm,” Sean Braisted, chief of communications and technology for Metro Nashville Public Schools, said at a news conference Thursday. He said the system was activated when police took out their guns Wednesday.

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.

Antioch, a growing and diverse area about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of downtown Nashville, 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.