Long before 17-year-old Solomon Henderson entered the school dining room with weapons, Tennessee authorities were warned of his threatening and fierce behavior.
In 2020, when he was 13 years old, his mother called the police, saying that he had hit her in the face and tried to hit her chair after she asked him to remove his back yard. According to the incident report, the Clarksville police officer accused Henderson of a simple attack that Propublica and WPLN News received at the request. Previously, it was not reported.
In 2023, Nashville police visited the family and stated that they had removed two weapons. A press secretary of the Police Department said the weapon belonged to adults in the house, but the incident report could not be released because the minor participated.
In Antioch High School, a year later, Henderson pulled a knife on a 15-year-old girl. To do this, he was accused of reckless threat, in accordance with the court document, the mother of the girl, who is shared from the propublica and WPLN. School representatives responded by suspending Henderson for two days, reports WSMV-TVWhich received a disciplinary record that calls the weapon as a “box”.
Two months later, in December 2024, the user on X indicated one of Henderson’s accounts and marked the FBI, urging the agency to look into his ties with school shoots. Henderson’s accounting records who did not use his first or surname were rejected in December and in January for violating “rules against criminals of severe attacks”. At school, his marks were slid. said the teacher Wsmv There was a “pedestrian red flag” in this Henderson.
On January 22, Henderson came to school with a gun. He fired at 10 seconds in 20 seconds in the dining room, killed 16-year-old Joselina Korea Escalante before turned the gun on himself.
It is unclear how many of the red flags of Henderson were listed. In response to questions about Handerson’s past interaction with law enforcement agencies, the Nashville police department refused to comment. Asked if the incident appeared in Clarksville during the investigation, the press secretary showed that the department did not know it. And school officials refused to say whether they considered the incidents of its past when determining its suspension, citing the laws on the confidentiality of students.
Stands out from this series
The suspension of Henderson is threatening another student with arms stands in sharp contrast to other tougher punishments that students have encountered a series of recently passed state laws aimed at preventing firing at school and hacking mystification threats. A A 10-year-old that shows a finger gun can be expelled from school for a year and 11-year-old guy Who is rumored to make a threat may be accused of a crime. Neither of those children nor others whose punishment PROPUBLICA and WPLN CONSIDED LAST YEARbrought weapons to school.
Henderson’s girl threatened, Hemima told Propublica and WPLN, which was surprised to see it in the corridors only a few days after the incident. Propublica and WPLN use only their name because it is a minor. “He had a whole knife at school and he was not kicked out,” she said. “It’s just not sitting with me.”
Legislators say tough punishments are needed to scare students from the threat of hoaxes who scare students and teachers, as well as spend time and resources for investigation. But lawyers and judges say the approach floods the justice system with the help of cases that can be done at school, which complicates focus on the real danger.
“At any time, when you have the influx of cases that pose threats or conversations to be investigated, I think the juvenile court.
Gloria Johnson State Representative, Democrat and a former special education teacher, says Tennessee Republican Supermansion should focus more on defense implementation, which will actually help stop mass firing rather than teach the lesson to children who do not intend to perform it.
“Every time we try to come up with something to prevent these cases, they are not interested,” Johnson said. “But they are interested in raising punishment and condemnation of 7-year-old criminals.”
Henderson complained about students who had troubled threats at his school, worrying that the police would increase his planning. In the Internet Daven, which he posted before the shooting, he wrote that he would never pay attention to himself, like other children, calling them “clowns”. In order to attack, he wrote, the attacker needed a “element of surprise”.
Credit:
First Image: Paige Pfleger/WPLN. Second image: George Walker IV/AP photo.
Tennessee requires school officials and police together over “threats assessing” to explore cases where students show “dangerous or threatening behavior”. They need to solve the problems before they develop to violence and determine whether the problems that need problem students are needed, additional resources such as counseling or other mental health services.
“If you look at the children who may have behavior or other stressors who happen in your life, we want to capture and dig in it right away,” said Melissa Nelson, a safety and safety counselor that trained thousands School staff at threats.
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School shooters usually plan their attacks in advance, Federal studies showAnd most are valid for ways long before the attack. If the process works at best, threatening groups can get out early to put students on a better way. If the child acts because he is scoffed, for example, the team can switch the hour of lunch to separate him from the bully or help meditate the best relationship between students. These interventions may have been insufficient to restrain Henderson, but repeated contacts and observations he has been in the county, experts are considered the best practice.
According to state legislationLaw enforcement agencies and school districts should not publicly disclose their threats’ assessment process or how effectively it is when stopping violence. As a result, the public is little transparency in what steps are taken to prevent students like Henderson, become the next school shooter.
“If we do not use the practice based on the facts, and we do not have a good basis for the specific things we have to look for,” Nelson said, “we have a very high potential of the missing warning signs.”
Public subway school Nashville refused to comment why they gave Henderson a two -day suspension instead of a more severe punishment or completed their threat assessment. But, according to the discipline of the district, its schools do not need to complete an assessment of the threat to students punished for a reckless threat in which Henderson was charged with court.
If the school and police officers completed the assessment, they would need to consider the history of Henderson’s violence and the risk of acting aggressively in the future, a copy of the threat assessment questionnaire said from Popublica and WPLN. They would also have to solve how to solve any problems they had in relation to Henderson, such as monitoring his social media, random checkpack or locker and help him get advice.
Henderson’s online duty gives an understanding of the warnings that officials may have missed. He wrote that the police once found a gun in his house that belonged to him, but his father took the blame. He also wrote that his mom had been abusing them for years, including putting his gun at his head when he was young. PROPUBLICA and WPLN made some attempts to achieve Henderson’s parents for comments but did not hear.
The diary also showed that he actively works in online bands that glorified mass shooters, and that he was promoting racist, anti-Semitic, anti-lgbqt+ and harsh mysogin. He wrote that he felt lonely at school and wanted to stab a classmate.
The way the school area coped with Henderson’s behavior, disappointed Hemim and her family. The family decided not to go to the court against Henderson – they wanted the school to make him advise or bring him to an alternative school, and they worried about the excessively severe punishment in the justice system. This decision is that her mother Patricia Lerima said she regretted now.
“I had to go to court,” she said, emphasizing that he might need help. “But it seemed to me that the subway did not hit him.”
Gemima reminded that when the school administrator collided with Henderson about the threat of her knife, he started screaming at Gemima and called it a n-word. No one told her he would return on school days later. On the day of shooting, she said, she did not take a long time to spread among the students that Henderson was the attacker. Due to her story from Henderson, it struck that she could become one of his victims.
“You couldn’t, and you failed everyone at school,” Hemima said. “I just feel that the situation had to be resolved.”
Molly Simon about propublica and Fiba Petrovich Wisconsin Watch contributed to research.
