Fri. Feb 14th, 2025

Antioch High School student on witnessing Nashville shooting: ‘We’re scared and confused’

By: Kelly Puente

Brandi Lemons, an 18-year-old senior at the high school, said she was walking into the cafeteria when gunshots rang out.

As the news unfolded of a deadly shooting in the cafeteria at Antioch High School on Wednesday morning, one student witness gave her account of the horrific scene.

Brandi Lemons, an 18-year-old senior at the high school, said she was walking into the cafeteria with other students to have lunch when she heard gunshots.

“I heard a big pop and we all turned around and tried to find out what it was, and then three more pops after that and we all took off running to the left side of the cafeteria,” she said by telephone.

Lemons said she was about to climb over a milk counter to escape when she saw the shooter walk around a corner toward her. She said he then put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

She said the shooter was a junior at the high school, but she had never met or spoken with him.

Metro Nashville Police said a 17-year-old suspect shot and killed 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante, wounded another student and then turned the gun on himself. He died as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police spokesperson Don Aaron said. The third student suffered a grazing wound, Aaron said.

Lemons said she then ran through the cafeteria’s kitchen and out the school’s back exit, where she called her father from the parking lot to come pick her up.

Lemons said she and her fellow classmates are all shaken.

“Right now we’re scared and confused,” she said.

Her father, Brandon Williams, a local pastor at the Tabernacle of the Congregation Church, said three of his children attend the high school, but his other daughter was home sick and his son was in the culinary classroom at the time.

“I’m happy that my kids are safe, but I feel for the families whose children are not safe,” he said.

Williams said he hopes to begin leading prayer vigils and community support with other parents.

“We will definitely be praying,” he said.

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