A Bellevue mother says a classmate threatened her middle school son with the chilling warning, "shut up before I go get my momma gun and shoot you." She told a reporter she had moved her family from East Nashville to Bellevue specifically to keep her children safe, and that hearing those words left her terrified. According to the mother, her son went straight to a teacher after the comment, but she says no one from the school contacted her for days.
According to WSMV, the incident happened last Wednesday. The outlet reports that the school resource officer did not begin an investigation until an adult was finally notified on Friday. WSMV says the SRO then filed a police report, and that Metro Nashville Public Schools told the station the student accused of making the threat "has not been at school since the incident was reported." Both the mother and her son told WSMV that the boy reported the threat to a teacher immediately after it happened.
District Policy: 'Class 2' Threats
As laid out in Metro Nashville Public Schools discipline tables, a threat to harm students or staff can fall under the category "Threats, Class 2." That label triggers a building-level threat assessment and can lead to serious consequences, including out-of-school suspension or expulsion. The district's discipline tables also spell out specific timelines for how quickly schools are supposed to respond when a threat is reported, along with the levels of intervention they must consider.
Parents Say Notification Came Too Late
"That's something that you always notify a parent of when their child has been put in danger, threatened, or anything like that," the mother told WSMV. She said it was "terrifying" that the two boys shared both a bus and a classroom, and that the delay in telling her made her feel unprotected and left out of the loop on a potentially serious situation. The family asked to remain anonymous, saying they fear for their son's safety.
School-Safety Context in Tennessee
The Tennessee Department of Education's annual Safe Schools Report tracks "serious incidents," including weapons and assaults, that districts are required to report. Officials use the data to look for patterns and help guide policy decisions; see the Tennessee Department of Education's Safe Schools Report. Metro Nashville Public Schools says it treats safety as a joint effort with the Metro Nashville Police Department, and on its safety page, it highlights expanded school resource officer coverage and formal threat-assessment protocols, outlined at Metro Nashville Public Schools.
What To Expect Next
MNPS told the station it is following the district's standard threat-investigation process and said student-privacy laws prevent the district from publicly sharing what disciplinary action, if any, is taken. Parents who have questions or concerns are encouraged to contact Bellevue Middle School's main office or the school's SRO directly; that contact information is listed on the school's website.
