TN - Shooting at private Christian Covenant School, Nashville, suspect dead, multiple victims, 27 Mar 2023

[SouthAussie]

It's unclear how she gained access to the building. Police say all of the doors were locked.

Female shooter kills three kids and two staffers at elementary school

The shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville began at 10.13am on Monday. The female shooter entered the school through a side door and opened fire. She was dead by 10.27am.

www.dailymail.co.uk

"entered the Covenant School via a side door"

"initial findings showed she was at one point a student at the school"

Nashville private school shooting suspect had maps of building and scouted possible second attack location, police say | CNN

A shooter who killed three 9-year-old students and three adults at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville Monday had maps of the school, left behind writings and scouted a second possible attack location, police said.

edition.cnn.com

 

[karen in New York]

Schools need to have the funding to be able to pay for this. There are laws that designate how & where money can be spent which can make it difficult for districts. I worked in public education for 42 yrs.
I absolutely agree with you on this matter! We must make our schools safe for students.

Do private schools receive state funding or just public schools?

 

[Mama-dukes]

I think that they need 2 start putting bullet proof windows in every window even the ones on the doors and have metal detectors and whatever else is necessary 2 keep everyone safe

 

[JennieM]

Speaking to reporters, the Nashville police chief, John Drake, said the victims had been identified and their families told.

Asked if the woman was wearing body armour when she entered the school, he declined to say for certain.

Don Aaron, a police spokesperson, told reporters the first call about the shooting came at 10.13am local time. The shooter, Aaron said “entered the school through a side entrance and traversed her way from the first floor to the second floor, firing multiple shots”.

The shooting happened in a “lobby-type area” and “not in a classroom per se”, Aaron said. The shooter was dead by 10.27am after being engaged by two of five officers. An officer was wounded from cut glass, Aaron said. No other injuries were reported.

Drake was asked if the side entrance to the school had been locked. He said: “There was a door that was entered. All doors were locked to our understanding. How exactly she got in at this point is still under investigation. There was a vehicle that was nearby that gave us clues as to who she was.”

Drake said the school did have an active shooter protocol. He said some children “evacuated to a wood line” behind the school, while some went to a fire hall.

Aaron said there were no police personnel assigned to the school, which is run by the church. Police were viewing school video footage, he said.

Nashville school shooter carefully plotted attack that killed six, say police

Officers killed attacker, 28, after massacre left three children and three adults dead

www.theguardian.com

 

[Gut_feeling]

Watch: 'Aren't you guys tired of covering this?'​

A woman jumps in at the end of a press conference by officials to say that she survived a previous mass shooting in Illinois last year.
Ashbey Beasly said was visiting family in Nashville.
Following today's shooting she said: "How is this still happening?"


You can watch the video below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-65087221

Wow. That was very powerful. Hearing her speak so much truth, with such conviction, how can voices like her's continue to be ignored by the powers that be? So many truthful, rational, passionate voices just keep getting ignored.

 

[Stunned]

Yes, just imagine how security would change if a lot of people were being killed on airplanes...oh, wait a sec...

Touché

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

I think it's too late.
128th mass shooting just this year. Everyone is numb. Nothing changes.

One day, they'll study this time in history (hopefully). It'll be an entire generation killed by each other, children first. People will wonder how we let it happen.

 

[Alethea]

NBC News is reporting the shooter was 28 year old Audrey Hale.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1640451945268932608

 

[Lusitana]

Nevermind, just saw that the shooter was identified already.

 

[Stunned]

May we NEVER normalize this behavior.
Our country needs reform in so many areas that I would not know where to begin.
My heart breaks every time a child dies.
What can we do to change this abhorrent trend,?

I think we know what needs to be done. It just doesn’t seem to get done. IMO

 

[JennieM]

Police to give next update shortly​

Nashville police will be providing another update at 5pm local time (22:00 GMT).

So far, they have identified the shooter as a 28-year-old white woman from the Nashville area.

Police have also said she may have been a former student of The Covenant School, a private primary school where the shooting took place, but that was based on "initial findings".

They have not released her name, or the names or ages of the six victims.

Three children and three staff members were killed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-65087221

 

[Cryptic]

Do private schools receive state funding or just public schools?

Private schools are not funded by the State.

But... there can be indirect exceptions- though these are rare.

Some states may allow some parents on some occasions to use state money "vouchers" to enroll their children in a private school. This is done under the idea that the qualifying parent, and not the state, selects the private school.

 

[dotr]

Female school shooters are so unusual, especially where young children are targeted, is it possible that the perp had an anger, literally triggered by the idea of children and new rules pertaining to them?
imo, speculation, fwiw.
Rbbm.
2019

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/08/health/female-shooters-rare/index.html

''In an FBI list of active shooter incidents in the United States from 2000 to 2017, nine of 250 incidents identified involved female shooters.''

''The women in those shootings were usually armed with handguns and opened fire inside colleges, businesses or their current or former workplaces, according to the list.''

“Research shows that basically males commit more homicides than females, regardless of the subtype of homicide,” Lankford said.''
........

''There’s no single explanation for why women are rarely responsible for active shootings because there’s no single profile of a mass shooter, Cornell said.''
If anything, the location of the shooting is more telling than the shooter’s gender, he said.

“There are several pathways we observe: antisocial individuals who are part of a gang, depressed and despondent persons who are highly distressed over a grievance and believe they have no future, and a small group of persons with severe mental illness that includes delusional thinking,” he said.''

 

[mickey2942]

I think that they need 2 start putting bullet proof windows in every window even the ones on the doors and have metal detectors and whatever else is necessary 2 keep everyone safe

None of which works or is effective when a side door is propped open, as in Uvalde school shooting incident.

 

[sds71]

The 6 victims fatally shot by the active shooter at Covenant School are identified as: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9, Cynthia Peak, age 61, Katherine Koonce, age 60, and Mike Hill, age 61.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1640457155538219013

 

[JennieM]

Investigators were combing through the shooter's home, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told reporters.

He said he did not know which year or years the shooter may have attended The Covenant School.

“At one point she was a student at that school," he told reporters. "But unsure what year ... but that’s what I’ve been told so far."

A car near the shooting scene helped police determine who the shooter was.

“There was a vehicle that was nearby that gave us clues as to who she was," Drake said.

Doors are usually locked on the campus but the shooter got into a side entrance, officials said.

"How exactly she got in, at this point, is still under investigation," Drake said.
The chief praised his officers for taking on the shooter immediately.

"It could have been far, far worse," he said.

Police chief tells NBC News a sense of ‘resentment’ may have fueled Nashville shooter’s attack at former school

The shooter, Audrey Hale, 28, of Nashville, may have planned to attack multiple locations, Police Chief John Drake told Lester Holt in an interview.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Alethea]

Nashville PD released the names of the 6 victims. May their poor souls rest in peace.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1640457155538219013

 

[Ontario Mom]

Blaming the media is anger displacement IMO. Mass communication saves lives. Knowing more about these events & shooters is valuable as we grapple with this thorny issue.

Where is a person's character formed? At home. And that is where killers come from. Getting to the root of the problem means figuring out how to intervene in an effective way as early as possible.

Rather than turn away by taking the spotlight off these criminals, we as a society need to work toward reducing the negative influences that create them & introducing more positive influences.

If we can't do that better, the madness will continue & get worse (although with so many incidents already in 2023 it's hard to imagine worse).

Teaching children how to manage emotions better, problem solve frustrations better & evaluating early for mental instability warning signs could help.

The "contagion" aspect is magnified by social media, popular culture focus on violence & demeaning vulgarities.

As a person thinks in his heart, so is he. As a person thinks in her heart, so is she.

We are choosing the kind of society we live in. We all need to make better choices. And that starts at home.

JMHO

I wasn't blaming the media, I was saying the exact same thing you said about the social media contagion. Something about the platform (and MSM as well, since it reaches far more people than SM does) feeds that sick and damaged part of the mind of folks that do these sorts of things.

jmo

 

[kaen]

I think that they need 2 start putting bullet proof windows in every window even the ones on the doors and have metal detectors and whatever else is necessary 2 keep everyone safe

It is important to remember that bullet proof glass in windows makes it impossible to break the window to get people out in case of a fire (which first responders would say is a more likely school emergency than a mass shooting). Bullet proof glass is much heavier so retrofitting a glass window is very difficult AND it is hard for young children to maneuver in case of a fire or other emergency that would necessitate opening the window. Just some info from my previous research for my school after Sandy Hook.

 

[Alethea]

So she murdered third graders and grandparents. What a sick and cowardly thing to do.