| Antioch High School shooting | |
|---|---|
| Location | 36°02′49″N86°35′55″W / 36.04694°N 86.59861°W Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Date | January 22, 2025 11:09 a.m. [1] (CST) |
| Target | Students at Antioch High School |
Attack type | |
| Weapon | 9mm Taurus G2C semi-automatic pistol [2] |
| Deaths | 2 (including the perpetrator) |
| Injured | 2 (1 by gunfire) |
| Perpetrator | Solomon Sahmad Charlie Henderson |
On January 22, 2025, a school shooting occurred at Antioch High School in the Antioch neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, United States. 17-year-old student Solomon Henderson opened fire inside the school's cafeteria, killing one student and injuring another student before he committed suicide. [1]
Antioch High School is a public high school located in Antioch, Tennessee, a neighborhood of Nashville. [1] [3] At the time of the shooting, it had over 2,100 students [1] enrolled in grades 9–12 and is one of 19 high schools administered by Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. [3]
Prior to the shooting, Henderson went into a school restroom and is believed to have retrieved a weapon there. [1] [4] [5] The handgun was reported to be a 9mm Taurus G2C semi-automatic pistol. [2] The shooting began at 11:09 a.m. when Henderson confronted 16-year-old female student Josselin Corea Escalante in the cafeteria and killed her with his handgun. [1] [3] [5] Henderson fired several more shots, then proceeded to shoot himself in the head with the same handgun. [1] [3] Two injuries occurred; one caused by being grazed by a bullet, [5] and another facial injury following a fall. Both of the injured were students. [1] [3] [4] Ten shots in total were fired during the shooting within 17 seconds. Two magazines were recovered, the one inserted having nine 9mm rounds inside and the other having seven. [1] The shooting was livestreamed in part on the service Kick. [1]
The gun used in the shooting was obtained legally in Arizona in 2022 and had never been reported as stolen. [1] It still remains unknown how the weapon came into Henderson's possession, despite law enforcement working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms to resolve the mystery. [6] Two school resource officers were in the school building but were not in the cafeteria at the time of the shooting. [1] [3] The school did not have metal detectors. [7]
Parents were initially sent to a local hospital to reunite with their children. [1] They were later taken to a designated reunification center. [1] [3] Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools has given a phone number for parents to call about the shooting. [1]
Materials from Henderson's virtual diary made public following the shooting suggest the attack was originally going to occur on a far larger scale than what actually occurred. On December 12, 2024, Henderson shared a photo in which nails and Vaseline he had purchased were visible, claiming he was planning to construct an Improvised Explosive Device with the materials. [8] A few days later on January 1, 2025, Henderson debated on carrying out the attack while he is still seventeen or waiting until his eighteenth birthday in order "to get better equipment like gopro [ sic ] and better guns." This correlates with Henderson's original goal of murdering ten or more students at the High School, which would be far more feasible with improved weapons, such as a rifle. [9] [8]
However, by January of 2025, Henderson seems to have altered his plans out of fear of being arrested before he is able to carry out the attack. On January 16, 2025, Henderson wrote "The shooting will happen next Thursday. [a] This is a complete failure and not the original plan I had. Due my incompetent[ sic ], the law and family issues." [8]
Solomon Sahmad Charlie Henderson [10] (March 23, 2007 [11] –January 22, 2025) was identified as the perpetrator. [1] [3] The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department was investigating writings and social media posts connected to Henderson. [3] [5] In the writings, Henderson praised various mass killers, [5] including the perpetrators of the Christchurch mosque shootings and 2022 Bratislava shooting, [12] and shared his own antisemitic and racist views. [1] [4] [5] [8] The author of a 288-page diary attributed to Henderson expressed a desire to kill people and a fear of being caught by authorities. [8] A separate 51-page document expressed white supremacist and neo-Nazi beliefs, including hatred towards minority groups. Henderson, who was African-American, described himself as a black man who was angry at members of his own race. [4] Henderson was admittedly a frequent user of the imageboard Soyjak.party , and his manifesto contained memes and jargon originating from that imageboard. [13] [14] He was also active on a forum dedicated to sharing depictions of graphic violence, [15] [16] along with being associated with far-right and cybercriminal networks such as 764, The Com, and Terrorgram. [17] [13] Police investigators discovered evidence that Henderson and the perpetrator of the Abundant Life Christian School shooting, Natalie "Samantha" Rupnow, were following each other on social media but did not coordinate in planning their respective attacks. [1] [18] [5] Henderson was also, according to his online diary, abused by his mother, whom Henderson alleges placed a gun to his head once when he was seven to nine years old. However, these claims were never confirmed by a secondary source. [9]
Henderson was described as quiet by classmates. [4] Henderson had nonetheless been suspended for two days after bringing a box cutter to school and threatening another student on October 25, 2024. He was scheduled to appear in juvenile court due to the incident, but the family of the threatened student decided not to press charges against Henderson. [19] Henderson was granted judicial diversion on January 8, 2025, two weeks before the shooting. [20]
Police had been called to the Henderson residence at least three times prior to the shooting. [21] The first emergency call was made in 2020 by Henderson's mother. She reported Henderson as a runaway, and claimed he had punched her in the face and "tried to hit her with a chair before running away." He was later found and arrested in Clarksville, Tennessee. [22] The second visit was in October 2023 after the Nashville police department obtained evidence linking the household to the theft of two firearms, which were then discovered during a search of the residence. Henderson's father admitted owning the firearms, but Henderson wrote in his online diary on January 10, 2025, "I had my house raided once they found a gun it was mine LOL. My dad took the blame." [21] Henderson's father has not yet clarified whether his or his son's version of this event is true. The final call was made by a member of the Henderson household in December 2024; police did not visit the dwelling itself. No further information has been provided surrounding this call. [21]
A fifth incident involving Henderson and law enforcement authorities came to light after the May 2025 release of Henderson's juvenile criminal record. Authorities found child sexual abuse material was found on Henderson's electronic devices on November 6, 2023; police claimed Henderson downloaded the material from the internet. [22] Henderson was arrested but released to his parents the next day, under the condition that he could only use the internet for schoolwork. [20] [22] Related charges were dropped on April 10, 2024, after Henderson had begun treatment at a mental health facility. [20] The records also show Henderson was in court the morning of the shooting to sign a binding document, arising from Henderson's October 2023 suspension, declaring that Henderson would be legally unable to purchase firearms or ammunition. Henderson's mother dropped Henderson off at Antioch High School shortly thereafter. [20]
Records from Henderson's time as a student at nearby John F. Kennedy Middle School said that Henderson reportedly told something "troubling" to a teacher and staff found something described as "concerning" on his school laptop, [22] but the nature of these incidents is confidential, because Henderson was 15 at the time. [22] In his online diary, Henderson wrote that he considered targeting his former middle school, stating, "Maybe I should set up bombs near JFK Middle School and Elementary school near my house as a diversion. To delay the police." (sic) [8]
The footage of the shooting was removed from Kick, and the user who streamed it was banned from the service. [1] [4]
Governor Bill Lee released a statement condemning the incident. Other state officials and members of the Nashville Public School Board released their own statements regarding the incident. [23] The White House also released a report saying that President Donald Trump was following the situation and offered his sincerest thoughts and prayers. [24]