NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A heavily armed woman shot dead three students and three staff members at a small, Christian elementary school in Nashville early Monday, police said.
Officers engaged and killed the gunman at the Covenant School, Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said. The shooter was one 28 year old woman from Nashvillesaid the police.
“At one point she was in that school, but she doesn’t know what year, all that,” John Drake, police chief of the Metro Nashville Police Department, said at a news conference. He added: “There was a vehicle nearby that gave us clues as to who she was.”
Three children and two adults were taken to Monroe Carell Jr. with gunshot wounds. Children’s Hospital in Vanderbilt and all five were pronounced dead there, said Craig Boerner, spokesman for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The sixth victim was not taken to hospital, Aaron said. Police have not disclosed the ages of the victims.
The shooter was armed with at least two “assault rifles” and a handgun, Aaron said. Officials were working to identify the shooter and victims, he said.
“This is the ultimate crime, when schoolchildren and caregivers are the victims of senseless gun violence,” Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk said at a news conference.
‘Aren’t you tired of this?’: Woman who survived Highland Park shooting makes plea in Nashville
What happened in the Covenant School shooting?
The gunman entered through a side entrance of the school and went to the second floor “firing several shots,” Aaron said.
All the doors were locked and officers were investigating how she got in through the side door, Drake said.
Police received a call from an active shooter at 10:13 a.m., Aaron said. Officers responded “quickly,” entered the first floor and began cleaning up the area, he said. They “went immediately to the gunfire,” he said.
What is an ‘assault weapon’? Nine states have banned them
Two of the five officers on the floor opened fire on the shooter, killing her at 10:27 a.m., he said. She was in a “lobby-type area,” not a classroom, Aaron said.
Kendra Loney, a Metro Fire spokesperson, said rescue crews responded and tried to save lives.
The remaining students were escorted from the building along with faculty and staff, and buses took them to where students were reunited with their parents, Loney said. “We’re sure they heard the chaos that was going on around here,” she said.
A police officer suffered a hand injury from ground glass, Loney and Aaron said. No one else was hurt, Aaron said.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will assist the Metro Nashville Police Department in the investigation, TBI Director David Rausch said. FBI officials and special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on the scene.
What is Covenant School in Nashville?
The Covenant School is a private school founded in 2001 that serves students from kindergarten through sixth grade, according to the website. On any given day, there are just over 200 students and 42 staff members at the school, Aaron said.
The school is located on the campus of Covenant Presbyterian Church in the Green Hills neighborhood of the city, about 9 miles southeast of downtown Nashville. It is next to a Nashville fire station and less than a mile south of Nashville’s premier shopping district.
‘Our children deserve better’: First lady Jill Biden responds to mass shooting in Nashville
Because a church operates the private school, no Nashville police officers were assigned to the building, Aaron said. Officers were reviewing the school’s video, Aaron said.
Tennessee officials are heartbroken over school shooting
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said he was “monitoring the tragic situation closely.”
Nashville Mayor John Cooper thanked first responders and medical professionals and said his heart goes out to the families of the victims. He wrote on Twitter, “One tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities experiencing a school shooting.”
Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said she was “heartbroken when she learned about the shooting.” She wrote on Twitter, “My office is in touch with federal, state and local officials, and we stand ready to help. Thank you to the first responders working on the scene. Please join us in prayer for those affected. “
Adrienne Battle, director of Metro Nashville Public Schools, said she “mourned today for the tragic killing of children and school staff here in our community,” calling the killings an “unimaginable loss of life.”
“We don’t know all the details of how or why this happened, and we may never fully know,” Battle said. “At Metro Schools, we have invested significant resources to strengthen the security of our facilities in response to the far too many, far too common instances of school shootings over the years.”
The president inquired about the mass shooting in Nashville
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the mass school shooting in Nashville, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “He wants Congress to act because enough is enough,” said Jean-Pierre. “How many more children have to be killed before the Republicans in Congress act?”
First lady Jill Biden commented on the shooting during the opening address at a National League of Cities event in Washington. “I’m really out of words, and our kids deserve better,” she said. “We stand, all of us, with Nashville in prayer.”
The parents of the convent school gather in the church
At the scene, dozens of parents and spectators gathered in a parking lot awaiting updates as helicopters circled the area surrounded by a residential area and busy business district.
Parents lined up at the sanctuary of Woodmont Baptist Church to give their children’s first and last names to police.
Vice Mayor Jim Shulman was at the shrine handing out bottled water to parents and relatives.
Officials said children would arrive on school buses with their teachers.
89th school shooting this year
The attack marks the 89th shooting on K-12 school grounds in 2023, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. Last week, a 17-year-old student shot and wounded two faculty members at a Denver high school.
The shooting is also the first “active shooter” situation, defined by the database as when the shooter killed or injured victims, either targeted or at random, on the school campus during a sustained episode of violence.
There have been 129 mass shootings in the US this calendar year, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as at least four injured.
Database for mass murders: Revealing trends, details and fears from every US event since 2006
Illinois resident Ashbey Beasley was on vacation and about a block from the school when she heard gunshots Monday morning. Beasley, who was at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park last summer when a gunman opened fire, ran to the crime scene.
“Aren’t you tired of this,” she said as she took over the microphones after a press conference. “How is this still happening?”
Contributors: Chris Gadd, Rachel Wegner, Kirsten Fiscus, and Craig Shoup, Nashville Tennessean
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Covenant school shooting updates: 3 kids, 3 adults killed in Nashville
