Mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville leaves three children and three adults dead and ‘multiple injured’
AT least six people, including three children, are dead following a mass shooting at an elementary school in Nashville.
An unidentified 28-year-old woman, armed with two assault-type rifles and a handgun, opened fire on the second floor of The Covenant School in the Green Hills neighborhood in Tennessee on Monday morning.
Calls of an active shooter incident were phoned into the Metro Nashville Police Department at around 10.13am.
Responding officers arrived swiftly, entering the school’s first floor and immediately heard gunshots on the second floor.
“Officers went to the gunfire. When they got to the second floor and saw the shooter, a female,” Metro Nashville police spokesperson Don Aaron said at a press conference.
A five-member unit “engaged” with the female suspect in a lobby area of the second floor and took down the shooter by 10.27am.
Police previously described the female suspect as being in her teens, however, they have since confirmed the woman is a 28-year-old Nashville resident.
The suspect entered the school through a side entrance and made her way to the second floor, Aaron said.
The woman’s relationship with the school has yet to be determined.
Three children and three adults were pronounced dead from gunshot wounds at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a hospital spokesperson confirmed.
The ages and names of the children and adults were not immediately made available.
Five others, including three children and two adults, were wounded in the shooting. Their conditions were not immediately available.
A Metro Nashville police officer suffered a non-life-threatening hand injury in the incident.
The Covenant School is a private Christian institution serving Pre-K through 6th-grade students in Nashville.
The school has about 209 students and about 40 to 50 staff members, officials said.
Student reunification with parents has been set up at Woodmont Baptist Church, police said.
Hillsboro High School, Julia Green Elementary and Percy Priest Elementary were placed on lockout as a precaution until police clear the area.
First lady Jill Biden briefly addressed the shooting at the top of her remarks at Monday’s National League of Cities conference.
“I am truly without words. Our children deserve better,” she said.