Female shooter kills 3 children, 3 adults at Nashville school. What we know – National | Globalnews.ca

A female shooter killed three children and three adults at a Nashville elementary school on Monday before being killed by police, according to officials.

Talking to reporters, Nashville police spokesperson Don Aaron said that police received a call of a shooter at 10:13 a.m. at The Covenant School, which is a private Presbyterian elementary school hosted by a church that holds preschool up to sixth grade. When they arrived, police heard shooting on the second floor and, when they entered that level, saw a female shooting.

Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response and she was fatally shot by the responding officers, Aaron said. He said the shooter “appeared” to be in her teens and was armed with two assault-type rifles and a handgun. He said the shooter entered the school through the side entrance and went from the first floor to the second.

Authorities are working to identify the shooter and whether she had any connections to the school. There were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is church-run, according to Aaron.

“By 10:27 a.m., the shooter was deceased,” Aaron said.

The three adults killed were staff members, and all three deceased children had gunshot wounds, he added.

The school has about 200 students, and Aaron said there were 42 staff members present at the time of the shooting.

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 and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. One officer had a hand wound from cut glass.

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.

Jozen Reodica heard the police sirens and fire trucks blaring from outside her office building nearby. As her building was placed under lockdown, she took out her phone and recorded the chaos.

“I thought I would just see this on TV,” she said. “And right now, it’s real.”

The Covenant School was founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church in 2001, according to the school’s website. The school is located in the affluent Green Hill neighbourhood just south of downtown Nashville, situated close to the cities top universities.

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— with files from the Associated Press

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