Antioch High School Shooting: A Perfect Storm of Failure

Almost every school shooting is the result of a perfect storm of failure. Schools fail. Parents fail. Law enforcement fails. And the Antioch High School shooting in Nashville is no exception.

On January 22, 2025, 17-year-old Solomon Henderson entered the cafeteria of Antioch High School and fatally shot 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante before turning the gun on himself. It was the first school shooting of the year, and it unfolded in a school equipped with AI-powered gun detection cameras, a secured vestibule, and school resource officers on-site. None of it stopped him.

Henderson should never have been in that school, let alone with a weapon. Earlier this month, his juvenile court records were released under a new Tennessee law that allows for disclosure when a deceased juvenile commits homicide on school grounds. They paint a disturbing picture of missed red flags and meaningless consequences.

In November 2023, Henderson was arrested and charged with aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor after he downloaded and distributed child sexual abuse material. He admitted to uploading this content to Discord servers. He was released to his mother with a court order banning internet use, access to devices, and social media. Despite this, he continued to post online and maintained a disturbing online presence that included racist, incel, and neo-Nazi content.

I’m not surprised Henderson was trading in CSAM. Incel communities are known for their disregard of social norms and the law itself. Many of them believe that rules don’t apply to them, and it’s not uncommon to see this kind of deviant behavior escalate once they feel emboldened by their echo chambers. When someone becomes convinced the world owes them something, they begin to justify the unjustifiable.

After the CSAM arrest, Henderson was sent to a mental health facility for treatment. The case was dropped once he completed the program. Another opportunity to intervene lost to a system more interested in clearing a docket than preventing a tragedy.

Then, in October 2024, he brought a box cutter to Antioch High School and threatened a female student who merely said hello to him. He told school staff he would cut anyone who came near him. Once again, the system responded with a slap on the wrist. He was suspended for two days and later granted judicial diversion on January 8, 2025. The court mandated that he be homeschooled, supervised by his mother, and stay away from his victim.

On the morning of the shooting, Henderson and his mother signed paperwork reaffirming that he would not have access to any firearms or ammunition. Just hours later, he walked into his school with a gun and carried out a murder-suicide. To this day, it is still unclear how he obtained the firearm.

And I have to say, I think part of the reason the school did so little about Henderson’s escalating behavior is because schools are still afraid to stand up to the parents of troublemakers like this. To administrators, it’s often easier to tolerate the student than confront the parent. It’s the same mindset we saw at Richneck Elementary School, where staff were reportedly warned multiple times that a six-year-old had a gun but chose to do nothing. That silence ended with a teacher getting shot in the chest. Schools would rather gamble with lives than risk a confrontation with a combative parent.

Adding insult to injury, another gun-related incident occurred at the same school less than four months later. On May 8, during a routine security screening, an 18-year-old student was found with a loaded handgun in his bookbag. The weapon had been reported stolen from a vehicle the previous year. The student told police he brought it for protection at his after-school job and forgot to remove it before school. He was arrested and charged with bringing a weapon onto school property and theft of a firearm. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the event further underscores the continued failure to maintain a safe environment even after a deadly shooting.

Despite all the warnings, all the behavior, and all the intervention opportunities, Solomon Henderson remained in circulation until it was too late. He wasn’t supposed to have a gun. He wasn’t supposed to be in school. But just like so many other school shooters before him, he was allowed to fall through every possible crack.

And now, someone’s daughter is dead. Again.

(Sources)