Teen shooter kills fellow student, himself at a Nashville high school, police say

NASHVILLE —  A female student was killed and another was wounded Wednesday in a shooting in a Nashville high school cafeteria, police said.

The 17-year-old shooter, who was also a student at Antioch High School, later shot and killed himself, Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news conference.

The student who was injured in the shooting suffered a graze wound, Aaron said. A spokesperson for Vanderbilt University Medical Center told TV station News 2 that another student was taken to Vanderbilt Pediatrics for treatment of an eye injury that happened after the shooting.

Aaron said two school resource officers in the building were not near the cafeteria where the shooting took place, and by the time they got there the attacker had used a handgun to kill himself.

The school, with about 2,000 students, is about 10 miles southeast of downtown Nashville. At a hospital being used as a reunification center, officials were helping parents to get back with their children as they were bused in from the school.

Dajuan Bernard was waiting Wednesday afternoon at a service station to reunite with his 10th-grade son who was being held in the auditorium with other students. Bernard first heard of the shooting from his son, who “was a little startled,” he said. His son was upstairs from the shooting site but heard the gunfire, Bernard said.

“His mom wants to home-school anyway, so I don’t know. We might consider it,” he said. “This world is so crazy, it could happen anywhere. We’ve just got to protect the kids, and raise the kids right to prevent them from even doing this. That’s the hardest part.”

Wednesday’s shooting comes nearly two years after a shooter opened fire at a Nashville private elementary school and killed six people, including three children.

The tragedy prompted a months-long effort among hundreds of community organizers, families, protesters and many more pleading with lawmakers to consider passing gun control measures in response to the shooting. GOP lawmakers refused.

With the Republican supermajority intact after November’s election, it’s unlikely any meaningful bills to address gun control would be considered.

Instead, lawmakers last year passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds and would bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed.

Hall and Loller write for the Associated Press.