Three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian grade school in Nashville on Monday. Female shooter was a 28 year-old former student.
ADVERTISEMENTThree children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian grade school in Nashville on Monday. The shooter was a 28 year-old former student at the Covenant School, in the Tennessee state capital.
The violence occurred at a Presbyterian school for about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade. It was also not clear whether anyone else had been wounded Monday in the attack.
The perpetrator has been identified as Audrey Elisabeth Hale and was shot dead by officers at the scene. Hale drove to the school and then shot his way through the glass doors.
There has been some confusion about Hale's gender identity, with police initially describing the attacker as a woman, and later saying that Hale identified as transgender.
It has been established that the attacker had carefully planned the assault. A search of his home led to officers seizing more firearms, a manifesto and a map of the school.
Kendra Loney, a Public Information Officer with the Nashville Fire Department said that "crews were able to be on scene to pull out those that had viable signs of life, those that were still showing the option to be saved. And we did make transport of three individuals and three children [who died]. And then two adults that were taken from the scene."
The killings come as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year; a first grader who shot his teacher in Virginia; and a shooting last week in Denver that wounded two administrators.
The Nashville victims were pronounced dead upon arrival at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, according to Craig Boerner, a spokesperson for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which is affiliated with the children's hospital.
It was not immediately clear whether anyone else was wounded in the attack. Other students walked to safety Monday, holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars, to a nearby church to reunited with their parents.
The shooter died after being “engaged by” officers, Metro Nashville Police said in a Twitter post. It was not immediately clear whether the shooter died by suicide or was shot by police.
The fire department said it responded to an “active aggressor” but did not give any specifics. Other details about the shooting were not immediately available.
Police officers with rifles, heavy vests and helmets could be seen walking through the school parking lot and around the grassy perimeter of the building Monday morning.