A student at Antioch High School in Tennessee says he saw people “getting shot on the ground” as he and his classmates raced for the building’s exits during the fatal attack that unfolded there yesterday.
The accounts describing the chaotic scenes that transpired inside the Nashville school Wednesday are emerging as investigators are looking for a motive behind the attack. Police say a 17-year-old student shooter – who had posted “very concerning” writings online – killed Josselin Corea Escalante, 16, and wounded another student before turning the gun on himself.
“We were in the cafeteria just getting lunch like every other day, and we kept hearing gunfire in the front of the cafeteria and then people looked around screaming. We ran behind the garbage cans,” one student told WSMV, recounting the moment shots rang out.
“I saw people getting shot on the ground, bleeding,” he added, mentioning how he and his friends crouched down and ran to a side door to flee the cafeteria.
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Jordan Hebert leaves flowers at a memorial for the victims of a shooting at Antioch High School on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP/George Walker IV)
In a separate interview with WZTV, the student said the shooter “was a monster, just killing people.”
“Everybody just got separated – a lot of students were outside, inside. He was not a kid that you would think would do something like that, he stayed on task, he did his work, he was quiet,” another student told WMSV. “So I was really wondering what was going through his head. I felt like just a whole conversation could have ended all of that, just not led to that.”
One Antioch student told WKRN News 2 that she and the alleged gunman “were in ROTC together this year, too, and he was always top of the class.”
“I knew him personally. He was in my class, and I didn’t think he was anything like that. I just thought he was a sweet, quiet person, but he wasn’t,” said another.
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The Metro Nashville Police Department responds Wednesday to the shooting at Antioch High School. (X/ @MNPDNashville)
The father of Josselin Corea Escalante, identified by WTVF as German Corea, said to the station that “Every day I told her how much I loved her.”
“It’s not fair,” he reportedly added.
Escalante’s aunt, Maria Corea, also said to WTVF that “She was a very calm girl and well-behaved.”
Dasia Pleitez prays as she waits for her daughter at a unification site after a shooting at Antioch High School on Wednesday. (AP/George Walker IV)
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“She had good grades in school. She was a girl who loved her parents and all her family,” Corea added.
