The shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee that left three children and three adults dead should be investigated as a hate crime, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said Tuesday.
"We should be clear about what happened in Nashville. Police say the shooting was ‘targeted,’" the Republican lawmaker tweeted. "That makes it a federal hate crime - against Christian children and teachers. Targeting victims on the basis of religious affiliation is a hate crime. It should be investigated as such."
"All federal resources necessary should be brought to bear," Hawley added in a follow-up tweet. "And those individuals or groups who have spread a message of hate against the Christian community - which resulted here in horrific violence - should be held to account."
Hawley is calling on the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to open a federal hate crime investigation into the Nashville school shooting."I urge you to immediately open an investigation into this shooting as a federal hate crime," Hawley wrote to FBI Director Chirstopher Wray and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday.
