Sixteen-year-old Cameron Frierson had just finished watching a high school football game at Pearl Cohn High School when gunfire broke out on Herman Street. It was late on a Friday night, August 21, and most of the crowds had already headed home. Neighbors heard the shots ring out near 25th Avenue North around 10:30 p.m. When patrol officers arrived, they found the teenager lying in the road with multiple gunshot wounds.
Medics rushed Frierson straight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Doctors tried to save him, but his injuries were too severe. Witnesses later told investigators that the gunshots came from a white sedan with dark tinted windows that sped off right after the shooting. Metro Nashville police are still working to track down who was inside that car and why the shooting happened in the first place.
Frierson’s death added to a rough month of gun violence across the city. Just weeks earlier on August 4, another family lost a loved one across town. Fifty-six-year-old Fredrick K. Lytton died after a shooting at a U-Haul business located on Annex Avenue. That case moved quickly after police arrested Lytton’s 23-year-old coworker, Devin A. Rice, and charged him with criminal homicide following an argument on the job.
With two fatal shootings hitting separate neighborhoods in a matter of weeks, tension across Metro Nashville has remained high. People are on edge, and bad news travels fast through local group chats and social feeds. That nervous energy exploded on Thursday, August 27, when online posts began claiming a shooting was underway at the local Dell Technologies campus on Dell Parkway.
Word of an active shooter spread quickly across social media platforms. Worried family members started calling into offices, and workers began messaging each other to ask if everybody was safe. For several hours, the rumor picked up steam, creating real fear for employees who work at the 1 Dell Parkway facility just south of the airport.
Police and local officials stepped in to check the reports directly. After searching the area and checking with on-site staff, authorities confirmed there was no active shooter and no incident at the Dell campus. Emergency dispatches had no record of any gunfire at the corporate site that day.
Metro police are urging residents to take online claims with a grain of salt until official statements come out. The city has seen genuine tragedy this month on Herman Street and Annex Avenue, but the reported crisis on Dell Parkway turned out to be nothing more than internet rumor. Investigators continue to ask anyone with information on Cameron Frierson’s death to contact Nashville Crime Stoppers.
Leave a Reply