A shooting at The Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, on Sunday morning left three students and three adults dead, according to the Associated Press.
Police identified the shooter as Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old transgender woman from the school. “While we do not yet know the motive for the shooting, we have evidence that the suspect had a pre-determined and detailed plan for the shooting, including a detailed handwritten map of where the shooting actually took place,” said Nashville Police Chief John Drake.
Police responded to the call around 10:13 a.m. and took the shooter into custody 14 minutes later at 10:27 a.m. The shooter was shot and killed during the confrontation. The gunman was in possession of two assault rifles and a handgun, police said.
Authorities said the elementary school was run by a church, so there were no police officers present or assigned to the school.
The incident comes amid a spate of school shootings, including last May’s massacre at Robb Elementary School in Texas that took the lives of 19 students and two teachers.
This shooting is the 129th mass shooting in the U.S. so far this year, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA).
“It’s a family’s worst nightmare. It’s ripping our communities apart,” said President Joe Biden, calling on the GOP to pass legislation to ban assault weapons such as assault rifles.
