Nashville, Tennessee, March 27 (Reuters/GNA) – A 28-year-old woman armed with several guns opened fire on Monday at a private Christian school she once attended, killing three children and three adults before police killed her, authorities said.
The woman was carrying at least two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, police said.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department began receiving calls at 10:13 a.m. of a shooter at The Covenant School, which teaches elementary school-age children. Officers arriving on the scene reported hearing gunfire coming from the school’s second floor, police spokesperson Don Aaron told reporters.
Two officers from a five-member team shot the assailant in a lobby area, and she was pronounced dead by 10:27 a.m..
“The police department response was swift,” Aaron said. Police Chief John Drake later described the suspect as a 28-year-old woman from the Nashville area who “at one point was a student at this school.” But her identity was not immediately made public.
Deadly mass shootings have become commonplace in the United States in recent years, but a female attacker is highly unusual. Only four of 191 mass shootings cataloged since 1966 by The Violence Project, a nonprofit research center, were carried out by a female attacker.
Reacting to the shooting in Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Congress again to pass more gun reform legislation.
GNA/Credit: Reuters