NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A Nashville lawmaker has written Gov. Bill Lee, asking him to expand the call of a special session to include bills to address school shootings.
Rep. Jason Powell, D-Nashville, wrote Lee on Thursday morning after two students died at Antioch High School on Wednesday. A teen shot and killed Josselin Corea Escalante, 16. He then died by suicide. Two other students were injured on the campus: one was grazed by a bullet and the other had a facial injury after he trip and fell.
A special session is scheduled to start Monday on three topics: educational vouchers, Hurricane Helene relief and immigration. Lee argued that those were all topics that needed immediate focus and attention and that couldn't wait through the typical processes of a regular session.
Powell is arguing the topic of school shootings falls into a need for immediacy.
"The Antioch High School family, especially the students and teachers, must now live with the unimaginable trauma of experiencing a school shooting," Powell wrote. "Our classrooms should be sacred places to learn, and students, teachers, administrators and parents should feel the greatest sense of safety in every school in Tennessee."
Powell said he wanted the special session to address school shootings, gun violence and hate in Tennessee.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates uncovered the shooter's online manifesto. The shooter wrote he was "ashamed to be Black." He was anti-Semitic in his writings and posted a flyer from the Goyim Defense League, which is a neo-Nazi white supremacy group that visited Nashville this summer.
His writings also showed a photo of The Covenant School shooter who died in 2023 after attacking the private Christian school. Three children and three staff people died that day in addition to the shooter. He continued to write about how he felt about the school in disparaging terms about race. Antioch High School has a diverse student body with a majority of Hispanic and Black students.
The last time the legislature dedicated a special session to school safety issues was after The Covenant School shooting. A special session happened months later after lawmakers during the regular session said the issues brought to them were too soon to discuss. This sparked outrage from both the public and three specific lawmakers who later became known as the Tennessee Three. Those Democratic lawmakers stood in the well on the House floor with a bullhorn to try and draw attention to gun reform.
Two of those lawmakers were later expelled but quickly brought back to their House seats soon after.
The Covenant School families and parents ascended on the Tennessee Capitol in both the regular 2023 session and the special session. From that the special session funded:
- $1.6 million to provide free firearm locks to Tennessee residents. This is a program that already exists in some fashion. The Senate agreed to the $1.6 million in additional funding.
- $10 million in nonrecurring funding for safety grants.
- $12.1 million will go to the Department of Mental Health for retention bonuses for prospective and current behavioral health professionals.
- $3 million for a scholarship program for the purpose of public behavioral health. This went to the Department of Mental Health.
- $4 million in nonrecurring money for the Behavioral Safety Net Program to be used for the provision of mental health services.
- $30 million for campus safety. It would include campuses in the University of Tennessee systems, Middle Tennessee State University, Austin Peay State University, Tennessee State University and the University of Memphis.
- $50 million in nonrecurring funding will go to community mental health agencies for assessments, evaluation, diagnostic, therapeutic intervention, case management and psychiatric medication management. Grants will go through the Department of Mental Health.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at emily.west@newschannel5.com.
In this time of NIL deals and transfer portals, this is a refreshing story about the best of college athletics. A must watch for all young athletes with big dreams. I already showed my boys, and I can tell you Jack has some new fans!
-Carrie Sharp
