Three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private religious school in Nashville, authorities said.
The shooter, whom police believe was a 28-year-old white male from the Nashville area, was shot by two officers. Initially, police identified the shooter as female, but a spokesman later told WPLN's Alexis Marshall that the shooter was designated female at birth and used personal pronouns.
The shooting took place at Covenant School. The three children killed were students and the three adults killed were staff members, Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said Monday at a news conference. Authorities identified the victims Monday afternoon:
Evelyne Dieckhaus, 9 years old
Hallie Scruggs, 9 years old
William Kinney, 9 years old
Cynthia Peak, 61
Katherine Koonce, 60
Mike Hill, 61
Koonce served as the school's principal, according to the school's website.
The first call came in at 10am:
1:00 p.m. The shooter "entered the school through a side entrance and went from the first floor to the second, firing multiple shots," Aaron said.
Lawmakers react :
Leader John Cooper said Nashville was joining the "feared, long list" of cities and towns that have endured school shootings.
"My heart goes out to the families of the casualties," Cooper said. "Our whole city stands with you."
Tennessee state Rep. Bounce Freeman, whose area incorporates the school, said it was "an unfathomable catastrophe for the casualties, all the children, families, instructors, staff and my whole community. I live around the corner from Contract and pass by it regularly. I have companions who go to both church and school there. I have too gone by the church within the past. It tears my heart separated to see this," WPLN detailed.
State Sen. Jeff Yarbro, who speaks to Nashville, said on Twitter:
"My heart breaks for the families at Contract. As a parent, I both hurt for them and seethe with them that fear of this kind of catastrophe is fair acknowledged as fair portion of what it implies to raise kids these days."
President Biden called the Nashville shooting "debilitated" and "terrible," saying it was "a family's most noticeably awful nightmare."
"We have to be do more to halt weapon savagery. It's tearing our communities separated, tearing at the exceptionally soul of our country," he said at the White House.
Concurring to the national Weapon Viciousness Document site, there have been 130 mass shootings within the U.S. this year.
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