A gunman opened fire at a pre-K & elementary school in Nashville, and at least three children and three adults have been killed, according to police.
“We now know that there are three students who were fatally wounded as well as three adults inside the school,” Don Aaron of the Nashville Metropolitan PD said during a news conference Monday afternoon.
The shooter, who was killed by police, was identified by police after the news conference as a 28-year-old woman, although her identity has not been released.
“We know that she was armed with at least two assault type rifles and a handgun,” said Aaron during the news conference.
He further said authorities were working to identify the victims. In all he said there were seven dead, including the shooter.
“By 10:27, the shooter was deceased” after engaging police, said Aaron, who said the first call came in at 10:13am.
Kendra Loney of the Nashville Fire Department said all of the remaining students were able to be escorted out of the building with faculty and staff.
The shooting occurred at the Covenant School. Covenant is a private Christian school that enrolls about 200 students from pre-K to sixth grade. Parents were being reunited with their children at the nearby Woodmont Baptist Church Monday afternoon.
Loney said that mental health specialists were being made available at the reunification site for students, family and staff “who are going to be affected by this today.”
This was the 128th mass shooting in the U.S. so far this year and the third mass shooting in the U.S. to take the lives of elementary school children. On May 24 a mass shooter at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 fourth graders and two teachers. That was the second deadliest elementary school shooting in U.S. history, after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, when a gunman slaughtered 20 first graders and six adults.
