Reporters discovered the red flags to Tenn. Schießerei at school

On January 22, 17-year-old Solomon Henderson entered his Nashville High School with a weapon and fatally shot a 16-year-old girl before turning the gun on his own.

In the weeks after the shootout, two reporters dug into the boy's disturbing past and found several about red flags that were raised to the authorities of Tennessee. The reporters Aliyya Wabpert from Prublica and Paige carers from WPLN/Nashville Public Radio have teamed up to pursue, which led to the fatal shootings.

In these questions and answers, Swaby and nurses share their reporting approach to consider their history and lessons on the way.

This conversation was dealt with for short and clarity.

How did this story come together? Go through the reporting process.

Nurser: It began on January 22nd when our newsroom at WPLN was announced that a shooting came at the Antioch High School. We were up to date on this day and in the days after the tragedy we talked about the larger image stories that we may be able to follow. At this point, Aliyya and I worked with stories about Tennessee's threats from mass violence law for almost a year, which occupies a really wide network and involved children into the judicial system about threats, which sometimes do not feel credible. Aliyya and I talked about the shooting of Antiochia and we wanted to understand which red flags existed in this case and who were missing from who they were missing. The state throws such a wide network, but how does it come that this child was not caught in it?

How did the collaboration between the two of them and their news editations work?

Swab: I started a project at the beginning of last year, as Tennessee dealt in his schools with threats to mass violence. When I started requesting notes from state and local authorities, I found that Tennessee belongs to a handful of states that enable the agencies to refuse inquiries from people without a state ID. So I stretched to Paige to see if she was open to help me. We clicked immediately immediately and decided to even work beyond data records. Paige had reported on youth jurisdiction and weapons in Tennessee for years, and I have been an educational reporter for more than a decade. Together we were a dream team for this study.

Nurser: We even gave ourselves a collabs name that combines our surnames: Team Swager! As a local reporter, it is really advantageous to work with Prublica – you have many resources, databases and expertise in such studies. On site we have the power of a radio signal that reaches people in our region, which has helped to collect connections and build connections here in Tennessee. It's really a great match. I learned more personally as Aliyya reports. It is incredible. And we are lucky that we share the same ethics and the same approach for interviews and writing style.

Their history records the many opportunities for law enforcement authorities and the school system to intervene and to prevent Henderson from committing the shootout. When a teacher expressed it aptly, he was a “changing red flag”. What did this part of the story report?

Nurser: One of the best parts of the collaboration is to share and conquer. After we decided that we wanted to see whether there was an investigation for both of us, I started to request records, and Aliyya met the phones. Prublica's research reporter, Mollie Simon, had put together some background information about Henderson, including the past in which his family had lived in Clarksville – about an hour from Nashville. Therefore, we not only sent inquiries to Nashville's shipping, police and school district, but also sent inquiries to Clarksvilles Dispatch and the police to see whether he had previous interactions with the law enforcement authorities, where he previously lived. This tactic resulted in a violent incident between Henderson and his mother, who had not previously been reported.

Aliyya: Mollie also dug after the filming by Facebook posts to understand how Community members spoke about it. Her background research led us to Gemima, the girl who pulled Henderson a knife at school. I asked their family cold and explained how we worked on and what we wanted to know and they were happy to talk. I also asked them for documentation that would confirm the story. They announced court files who have proven that Henderson was charged with ruthless threat to the youth court and that Gemima was the victim in the case. Gemima also informed a photo she had taken by Henderson in the cafeteria, shortly after he threatened her, which she shared with administrators at the time. The metadata in this photo helped us to refer the date of the incident with existing local reports about Henderson's disciplinary record.

Nurse: When we had all of this in hand, we transferred our results to everyone in history that could help us bring them to the context – judges, legislators, police and schools. Through this process, we found that MNPD knew nothing about the incident with Clarksville.

Can you lead us through some of the methods of violence prevention that you have learned in the course of reporting, such as the implementation of threat assessments or the connection of students with services? What should reporters who want to cover these strategies know how to report about it?

Swab: I spoke to a number of threat assessment experts across the country that helped me to put Tennessees in context. They all criticized the state's trust in triggers and arrests for dealing with threats, even in cases where the threats were not credible.

Reporters who want to treat these strategies for violence prevention should understand that many school districts and law enforcement authorities do not implement them well. The most difficult thing about this reporting was to get details on how these strategies help or harm students in schools. We have focused on finding families who are ready to share their stories and helped us access records that we would otherwise not have received.

Nurser: We also wanted to make sure that we had the advantage afterwards. It is easy for us to look back on all of these previous incidents and to interpret them as a warning sign that this child would become a school shooter. But the law enforcement authorities are currently taking care of these incidents and sometimes do not combine the points as we have set out. We wanted to ensure that our last story kept this in mind, while we held the agencies responsible by knowing what and when knew what and when – but also clearly about what we can and cannot say exactly because many records with children are sealed.

This story is a strong example of reporting on the accountability obligation, which should follow tragic news such as mass shootings. Can you explain why this report is important and what effects you hope and the reporting like you?

Nurser: Antioch was the second shootout that I treated in the four years in which I lived in Nashville. The first was the shootout in the alliance at school, in which three children and three school workers were killed. This shootout meant that the state's Republican governor of the state demanded changes in arms regulation – he and his wife were friends with one of the adults who were killed that day. The legislator had a special meeting, but no weapon reform was passed. I have reported a lot about how Tennessee often reacts to these weapons triadies by making it easier and not more difficult for more people to have weapons. The reality is that the omnipresence of weapons here and loose regulations are largely immobile – at least at the moment. So this makes it even more important to look at the gaps of the system we have, and the way the system could be improved in the hope of preventing future tragedies.

Swab: After a shootout at school, Breaking News about what happened and who was killed is absolutely crucial. But what Paige and I tried here to take a step back and ask another question: Would Tennessee have done something else to prevent this? Our reporting showed inconsistencies and deficiencies in the approach of the state in violence at school in order to show that shootings at school do not have to be a above conclusion.