Washington, Jan 23 (IANS): Two students were killed in a school shooting in Nashville in the American state of Tennessee in yet another grim reminder and manifestation of the country's runaway gun violence crisis.
Metro Nashville Police Department has said the first call to the 911 emergency number was received of the shooting at 11:09 a.m. on Wednesday. The shooter killed one student and then turned the gun upon himself and died of self-inflicted wounds, the police said.
A third student received a grazing wound.
The police identified the deceased as 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante and the shooter as 17-year-old Solomon Henderson.
The school district (@MetroSchools) released a statement on X saying, "Antioch High School is on a lockdown due to shots being fired inside the school building. Metro Police are on the scene. The person responsible for shooting is no longer a threat. We will be gathering students in the auditorium and will provide information on reunification as soon as possible."
The Wednesday shooting came nearly two years after three nine-year-old students and three adult staff members were killed in a shooting at another school in the same city. The shooter was also killed by police.
The Wednesday shooting was the first in President Donald Trump's second term.
"The President and his team are monitoring the news out of Nashville," the White House said in a statement.
"As details unfold, the White House offers its heartfelt thoughts and prayers to those impacted by this senseless tragedy and thank the brave first responders responding to the incident."
School shootings have become tragically endemic in the United States as is gun violence generally.
There were 39 shootings in schools in 2024, according to a tracker maintained by Education Week, which said it was the highest since it started monitoring such shootings in 2018.
The 2024 aggregate amounted to more than two school shootings a month.
The most devastating of such shootings took place in 2012 in a Connecticut school that claimed the lives of 20 elementary school students and six adults.
Six years later, a shooter opened fire inside a Florida school killing 17 people and wounding 17.
Overall, the Gun Violence Archive reported that 16,088 people died from gun violence in 2024.