A 28-year-old woman, Audrey Hale has stormed a private Christian school in the US city of Nashville, Tennessee, l shot three children and three adults on Monday, officials said, leaving behind writings and detailed maps of the school and its security protocols.
Police chief, John Drake, said Monday’s gun attack, whose lone culprit was a former student at the Nashville Elementary School, seemed to be a carefully planned confrontation as officers found a manifesto and a map of the schools surveillance and entry-exit point in the car of the suspect.
The assailant had stormed the school, gaining entrance by shooting through the door, releasing multiple shots as she advanced the school’s deserted corridors, a police statement said.
Hale was reportedly seen armed with three guns, including a semi-automatic rifle, and was shot dead by police 14 minutes after a distress call had been sent out.
Identifying the six victims, a police statement said one of the three children was eight years old and the other two were aged nine, while the three adults, including the school headmaster, were aged between 60 and 61.
The child victims have been named as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney.
The adult victims were named as Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.
School shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, where the proliferation of firearms has soared in recent years.
The attack was America’s 129th mass shooting of 2023, according to Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun violence data.
President Joe Biden has described the latest shooting as “sick” and said gun violence was “ripping the soul of this nation”, as he urged the Congress to pass a ban on the assault weapons often used in mass shootings.
Police chief Drake said investigators were working on a possible motive but that it was “not confirmed.”
Hours after the shooting, a memorial service for the victims was held at the nearby Woodmont Christian Church.
