NASHVILLE — The older siblings of a teen who shot his family because he didn't want to get up for school say they don't know what led him to pull the trigger but aren't surprised he got his hands on a gun.
As neighbors awoke Tuesday to head to school, work or a Super Tuesday polling place, the 16-year-old argued with family members, grabbed a 9mm handgun from a closet, shot his grandmother twice, lodged a bullet in his 12-year-old sister and also hit his 6-year-old nephew. His mother ducked behind a couch as he fired at her.
"Why he did what he did, we don't know," the teen's 27-year-old sister, Fredricka Williams, said Wednesday as she stood outside the apartment building where most of the family lives. "That's in his head."
Williams, who lives suburban Brentwood, Tenn., said family members have not had a chance to speak with her brother since Nashville police took him into custody. He fled after the shooting, and the search for him caused nearby schools and a polling place to go briefly on lockdown.
The teen, whose name was not released, remains detained at the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center.
The two children who each suffered minor wounds have been released from the hospital, family members said.
Their grandmother, who was shot twice, remained in stable condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Family members say she is expected to recover.
Their mother was too shaken up to talk, Williams said. She described her younger brother as a quiet teen who likes video games and often hangs out with neighborhood boys in their apartment complex.
In the past, her brother sometimes didn't want to get up for school, but he was never violent about it, she said.
"But he has a short temper when he gets mad — anger issues," Williams said of her brother, who is one of her seven siblings.
Joe Williams, the teen's 19-year-old brother, said he and family have no idea where their brother got a gun. But he said he wasn't surprised he was able to get one, blaming it on the neighborhood where the family lives and the wrong crowd the brother hangs out with.
"It's all about kids in these kinds of environments," Joe Williams said. "It might look pretty, but somewhere in the neighborhood there's a bad apple.”
Joe Williams said he previously had talked with his younger brother about his friends.
"(I told him) don't be a follower, be a leader," Williams said, hanging his head and turning silent.
Investigators were still attempting Wednesday to track down the owner of the 9 mm handgun, police spokesman Kris Mumford said. It has not been reported stolen.
The shooting is the latest incidence of violence among young adults in Nashville, a problem Mayor Megan Barry is working to address. Of the 75 criminal homicides last year, 20 victims were teenagers or younger — the highest number of youth deaths to hit Nashville in the past decade.
All the teens died from gunshot wounds.
"It's all in God's hands, what's to come," Joe Williams said. "He made a mistake. And they'll be (repercussions)."
Follow Natalie Neysa Alund on Twitter: @nataliealund
