Every shooting at a school in January 2025

Just like January 2024, the first month of the year had another preventable planned attack by a current student.

On January 22, two students died and two others were wounded during a shooting inside Antioch High School in Nashville, TN. A 17-year-old male student fatally shot a female student and then fatally shot himself with a handgun at 11:09 AM inside the cafeteria. The teen fired 9 shots at the female student who died and then fired one shot killing himself. The shooting was over in 17 seconds from the first to the last shot. A pistol with 7 rounds in the magazine was found next to his body.

A 50-page document posted online contained selfies with far-right paraphernalia. He wrote about wanting to “take revenge” on society, praised Adolf Hitler, and posted explicit photos from previous school shootings. His accounts are linked to “groyper” content—a term used with white nationalist and neo-nazi groups—referring to young men who claim to be “involuntarily celibate”. The document explained a need to "speed up" an original plan to commit the school shooting on Thursday and wrote that his goal was to kill "at least 10 people."

On a Bluesky account linked in the document, a post the morning of the shooting read, “Today seems like a good day to die.”

More about this attack:

• Nashville school shooter mimicked photos posted by other teenage killers

• Nazi influence on teenage school shooters

Nashville wasn’t the only major incident in January.

On January 13, a teen with an AR-15 rifle walked onto the playground of Verplanck Elementary School in Connecticut while students and staff were outside. The teen was dressed in all black with combat boots. As teachers frantically ushered the kids inside, he pointed the gun at students and banged on the glass doors to the school.

When police arrived 10 minutes later, the teen surrendered. While he was on the ground in handcuffs, officers realized that the gun was a replica airsoft rifle. An officer’s body camera recorded him saying that he wanted the situation to turn into a ‘suicide by cop’ (more info about this incident).

Earlier in the month on January 16, a man drove to Legacy Traditional School in Tucson, AZ. He parked his vehicle in the school parking lot and entered the building through an open delivery gate. After walking into the gym, he approached contracted photography staff who were there for student picture day and requested that his photograph be taken. School staff eventually realized that this random adult man didn’t belong on the premises, so they called the police.

When officers arrived, they found him “sitting on the floor and talking to himself.” After detaining him, they found a loaded 9mm handgun in his front jacket pocket and a knife. He told officers that he intended to carry out a mass shooting at the school.

Near Miss: Man planning mass shooting walked into an Arizona school

If you missed it, I also released four new episodes of the Back to School Shootings podcast in January:

• Can Brazilian Jiu Jitsu prevent school shootings?

• Dr. Beth Sanborn on the traits of an effective school police officer

• Gun violence exposure on walkable routes to and from school

• Why School Police May Not Be the Best Way to Prevent Violence

Trends in January 2025

Every Shooting at a School in January

Date: 2025-01-31

• City: Chicago

• State: IL

• School: Duke Ellington Elementary School

• Time Period: Dismissal

• Location: Front of School

• Summary: Adult man and teen shot in front of the school during dismissal