A shooting inside the Fred D. Thompson U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in downtown Nashville sent one person to the hospital Thursday morning, according to Metro Nashville Emergency Communications. The gunfire was reported at 719 Church Street.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will handle the shooting investigation, and the U.S. Attorney's Office will work with the TBI, according to WBIR. As reported by WZTV, one person was taken to the hospital following the incident.
The Nashville Downtown Public Library, located near the courthouse complex, was evacuated as a safety precaution following initial reports of the shooting, per the same WBIR account. The evacuation underscored how quickly the disruption rippled beyond the courthouse itself and into one of downtown's busiest civic buildings.
A Heavily Fortified Federal Complex
The courthouse where the shooting happened is no ordinary office building. The 275,000-square-foot facility officially opened on September 23, 2022, and is a courthouse for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, according to information compiled on Wikipedia. It houses eight courtrooms and eleven judicial chambers, and the U.S. Marshals Service maintains its Middle District of Tennessee headquarters inside the building, making the agency the primary body responsible for physical security and judicial protection at the site, per the U.S. Marshals Service.
The building was also engineered with that kind of threat in mind. Structural blast engineering and protective design measures were built into 719 Church Street by Thornton Tomasetti to meet federal requirements for blast resistance, progressive collapse prevention, and perimeter security, according to Thornton Tomasetti. Congress designated the complex under Public Law 115-39, signed in June 2017 to honor former U.S. Senator and actor Fred D. Thompson, who represented Tennessee in the Senate from 1994 to 2003, per records published on GovInfo.
Federal Law Bars Weapons Inside Court Buildings
Firearms are strictly prohibited inside federal court facilities under federal law. Knowingly possessing or bringing a firearm into a federal court facility is a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 930, according to a legal summary published on GovInfo.
This is not the first time the Church Street courthouse has drawn security concern. In March 2025, a Tennessee man was arrested and charged with terrorism and false reporting over threats, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal authorities arrested the suspect in that case.
Latest in a String of Downtown Shootings
Thursday's shooting adds to a string of gun violence incidents that have rattled downtown Nashville in recent months. A September shootout inside a Broadway apartment-building garage left one man dead. Earlier this week, police were also investigating a Monday morning shooting scene on Herman Street and a separate incident in which a man was shot in the back on Blank Street and was expected to survive.
As of Thursday afternoon, the condition of the person taken to the hospital, the exact circumstances of the shooting, and any potential charges had not been detailed by federal authorities. The shooting investigation is being handled by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, with the U.S. Attorney's Office working with the TBI.
