Antioch School Shooter Solomon Henderson Was A Walking Red Flag, According To Nashville Teacher

Prolonged earlier than 17-three hundred and sixty five days-passe Solomon Henderson walked into his college cafeteria with a gun, authorities in Tennessee had been alerted to his threatening and violent habits.

In 2020, when he became 13, his mother known as the police, asserting he punched her within the face and tried to hit her with a chair after she asked him to orderly up the backyard. An officer with the Clarksville Police Division charged Henderson with easy assault, per an incident epic that ProPublica and WPLN Info obtained thru a records demand. The arrest has not been beforehand reported.

In 2023, Nashville law enforcement officers visited the family’s dwelling and acknowledged they removed two guns. A Police Division spokesperson acknowledged the guns belonged to adults within the dwelling, nonetheless the incident epic could well most definitely not be released since the chase to alive to a minor.

At Antioch High School a three hundred and sixty five days later, Henderson pulled a knife on a 15-three hundred and sixty five days-passe lady. For that, he became charged with reckless endangerment, per a court epic the woman’s mother shared with ProPublica and WPLN. School officers answered by suspending Henderson for two days, per WSMV-TV, which obtained a disciplinary file that refers again to the weapon as a “field cutter.”

Two months after that, in December 2024, an particular particular person on X flagged one of Henderson’s accounts and tagged the FBI, encouraging the agency to ogle into his connections with college shooters. Henderson’s accounts, which did not spend his first or final name, had been suspended in December and in January for violating “guidelines against perpetrators of violent attacks.” In college, his grades had been slipping. A teacher knowledgeable WSMV that Henderson became a “walking red flag.”

On Jan. 22, Henderson came to school with a pistol. He fired 10 shots in 20 seconds within the cafeteria, killing 16-three hundred and sixty five days-passe Josselin Corea Escalante earlier than he grew to turn out to be the gun on himself.

It’s unclear what number of of Henderson’s red flags had been heeded. In step with questions about Henderson’s previous interactions with legislation enforcement, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Division declined to commentary. When asked if the incident in Clarksville came up throughout its investigations, a spokesperson indicated the department did not learn about it. And college officers declined to whisper whether or not they thought to be incidents from his previous when figuring out his suspension, citing student confidentiality regulations.

The woman Henderson threatened, Gemima, knowledgeable ProPublica and WPLN that she became surprised to survey him within the hallways simply days after the incident. ProPublica and WPLN are the spend of simply her first name because she is a minor. “He had a total knife in college, and he didn’t procure expelled,” she acknowledged. “It simply doesn’t sit down lawful with me.”

Lawmakers reveal that the harsh punishments are indispensable to discourage college students from making hoax threats that frighten college students and lecturers and extinguish time and sources to study. But lawyers and judges reveal the diagram in which floods the justice system with cases that will per chance be handled in faculty, making it more sturdy to contend with the actual risks.

“Any time can beget to it is probably you’ll per chance most definitely even beget an influx of cases that are threats or conversations that will per chance beget to be investigated, I deem it does take away invaluable sources for the actual, genuine cases that we desire it for,” acknowledged Mediate Sheila Calloway of the Davidson County Juvenile Court docket.

Bellow Salvage. Gloria Johnson, a Democrat and dilapidated particular education teacher, says Tennessee’s Republican supermajority can beget to center of attention extra on imposing protections that will basically attend quit mass shootings in space of educating a lesson to younger folks who fabricate not beget any diagram of carrying one out.

“Every time we try to give you one thing to prevent these incidences, they’re not ,” Johnson acknowledged. “But they’re attracted to enhancing penalties and convicting 7-three hundred and sixty five days-olds of felonies.”

Henderson had complained in regards to the college students who had gotten in trouble for making threats at his college, worried that the increased police presence would procure within the diagram in which of his planning. In an on-line diary that he made public earlier than the shooting, he wrote that he would never beget known as consideration to himself delight in plenty of younger folks had been, calling them “clowns.” With a purpose to attain an assault, he wrote, the attacker wished the “teach of shock.”

Tennessee requires college officers and police to work collectively on “threat evaluate groups” to study cases the establish college students uncover “unsafe or threatening habits.” They are presupposed to resolve concerns earlier than they escalate to violence and resolve whether or not apprehensive college students need further sources delight in counseling or plenty of mental health providers.

“Need to you’re having a ogle at younger folks who could well need behaviors that are relating to or plenty of stressors going on in their lives, we’re looking out to be taking pictures and digging into that lawful away,” acknowledged Melissa Nelson, a faculty security and security advisor who has trained hundreds of college workers on managing threats.

School shooters on the full plan their attacks upfront, federal study reveals, and most act out in relating to strategies wisely earlier than they assault. When the technique is working at its most effective, threat evaluate groups can step in early to space college students on a bigger path. If a baby is acting out because he is being bullied, as an instance, the group could well switch his lunch hour to separate him from the bully or attend mediate a bigger relationship between the college students. These interventions could well not beget been enough to discourage Henderson, nonetheless repeated contact and observation over the years he became within the district is thought to be most effective practice by experts.

Below deliver legislation, legislation enforcement and college districts don’t need to publicly uncover their threat evaluate path of or how effective it is at stopping violence. Which skill, the final public has little transparency into what steps are being taken to protect college students delight in Henderson from changing into the subsequent college shooter.

“After we aren’t the spend of proof-basically basically based completely practices and we don’t beget an actual framework of explicit issues we must be looking out to search out,” Nelson acknowledged, “then we attain beget a really high attainable of missing warning indicators.”

Metro Nashville Public Colleges declined to commentary on why they gave Henderson a two-day suspension as an different of a harsher punishment for pulling out a knife or whether or not they accomplished a threat evaluate. But per the district’s discipline chart, its colleges are not required to total a threat evaluate for faculty students punished for reckless endangerment, which became what Henderson became charged with in court.

If college workers and police did total an evaluate, they would beget been required to take into memoir Henderson’s history of violence and threat of acting aggressively in due path, per a duplicate of a threat evaluate questionnaire the district shared with ProPublica and WPLN. They additionally would beget needed to resolve how one can handle any concerns they had about Henderson, equivalent to monitoring his social media, randomly checking his backpack or locker and helping him to procure counseling.

Henderson’s on-line diary lends perception to warning indicators that officers could well beget missed. He wrote that police as soon as learned a gun at his dwelling that belonged to him, nonetheless his dad took the blame. He additionally wrote that his mother had been abusing him for years, at the side of striking a gun to his head when he became younger. ProPublica and WPLN made a pair of attempts to reach Henderson’s oldsters for commentary nonetheless did not hear help.

The diary additionally revealed he became energetic in on-line groups that glorified mass shooters and that he promoted racist, antisemitic, anti-LGBQT+ and violent misogynistic views. He wrote that he felt lonely in faculty and wished to stab his classmates to loss of life.

The model the college district handled Henderson’s habits has frustrated Gemima and her family. The family made the choice to not chase to court within the case against Henderson — they wished the college to procure him counseling or eradicate him to an different college, and they worried about overly harsh punishment within the justice system. It’s a decision that her mother, Patricia Lerime, acknowledged she now regrets.

“I might want to beget long gone to court,” she acknowledged, declaring that he could well need been required to procure attend. “But I felt delight in Metro failed him.”

Gemima recalled that as soon as a faculty administrator confronted Henderson about threatening her with a knife, he started yelling at Gemima and known as her the N-be aware. Nobody knowledgeable her that he would be help in faculty days later. On the day of the shooting, she acknowledged, it didn’t take lengthy for knowledge to spread amongst college students that Henderson became the assailant. It struck her, as a consequence of her history with Henderson, that she can be able to beget been one of his victims.

“Y’all failed me, and y’all failed everyone else within the college,” Gemima acknowledged. “I simply feel delight in the pain might want to beget been handled in a different way.”