Preschool Teacher Charged With Threatening to ‘Shoot Up’ School

A Tennessee preschool teacher has been arrested after she allegedly threatened to shoot another teacher and the school during an argument.

Nashville police responded to The Academy of McCrory Lane at about 11 a.m. on Thursday, meeting with an employee outside who told them the preschool and daycare was in lockdown because of the threat, WKRN reported.

The employee identified the teacher as Sheneca Cowart, 29, and said she was still in the classroom with another teacher and the kids.

According to an affidavit, officers viewed live cameras of the classroom and saw Cowart had no visible weapons and was moving the children into a closet, which staffers said was the procedure for a lockdown.

When more officers arrived, they moved down the hallway to the classroom, sawa Cowart exit the closet, and called for her to come into the hallway. She followed their orders and was taken into custody without incident.

Staff members told police that Cowart threatened to “shoot up” the school and that she keeps a gun “on her,” according to WSMV. A teacher reported that she overheard Cowart say, “When I start shooting, you better run.”

Another teacher said she had said she was going to shoot the teachers in the “kneecaps because it would not kill them.”

Cowart initially denied that claim, but later said she had made that threat on April 10, WKRN reported. She initially denied having a gun on her, but when police found a loaded gun in her purse on a hook in the classroom where she was found, she told them she had a second gun in her car in the parking lot outside.

Cowart has been charged with assault, threat of mass violence at a school, and two counts of carrying a weapon onto school property. She was ordered held on a $37,000 bond.

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[Featured image: Sheneca Cowart and one of her guns/Metro Nashville Police Department]