Heavily armed former student kills 3 children, 3 adults at Nashville Christian school: authorities

At least three children and three adults were killed Monday in a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville, police in Tennessee said.

The shooter who opened fire at The Covenant School was heavily armed, carrying at least two “assault-type” rifles and a handgun, according to authorities.

The suspect, Audrey Hale, was previously a student at the school, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake confirmed.

“Our investigations tell us that [Hale] was a former student at the school,” Drake said. “I don’t what grade [Hale] attended or grades, but we firmly believe [Hale] was a student there.”

Hale, who identified as transgender, had no prior criminal history, the chief added. However, the attack appears to have been carefully planned, with police finding a map and writings related to the incident.

“We have a manifesto. We have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this day — the actual incident. We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place,” Drake said. “There’s — right now — a theory that we may be able to talk about later, but it’s not confirmed. And, so, we’ll put that out as soon as we can.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was criticized on social media after calling attention to the suspect’s gender identity. 

“How much hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness was the transgender Nashville school shooter taking?” Greene tweeted. “Everyone can stop blaming guns now.”

Salon’s Amanda Marcotte wrote last week that there is a “growing crescendo of bombastic conservative attacks against LGBTQ people.”

“Across the country, there’s a mounting series of legislative and rhetorical efforts by Republicans to curtail the rights of LGBTQ to get medical care, enjoy equal access to public spaces and to express themselves freely,” Marcotte wrote for Salon on March 24. “Many Republicans have turned to the anti-LGBTQ movement as a way to rally support in the post-Donald Trump era.”

Police released the identities of the six victims who were fatally shot at The Covenant School. Their names were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9 years old; Katherine Koonce, 60; Cynthia Peak, 61; and Mike Hill, 61.

Earlier, Metropolitan Nashville Police police spokesperson Don Aaron stated that the first distress calls came to the police department around 10:15 a.m. local time.

“We now know that there are three students who were fatally wounded, as well as three adults inside the school,” Aaron said. “We are working to identify those victims. Including the shooter, a total of seven persons were killed as a result of this morning’s incident at the school.”

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department tweeted at noon that it had encountered an active shooter at the school, informing the public that that shooter was dead and instructing parents on the location of “student reunification.”

The Nashville Fire Department, as well as special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Nashville Field Division and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation also responded to the unfolding situation.

The Covenant School was founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church and enrolls children in preschool through sixth grade, according to its website.

Gov. Bill Lee, R-Tenn., said in a tweet that he was “closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant” along with other law enforcement agencies.

“We are working to identify those victims. Including the shooter, a total of seven persons were killed as a result of this morning’s incident at the school,” Lee wrote. 

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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press conference that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting.

“We need to do something,” Jean-Pierre said. “Once again, the president calls on Congress to do something before another child is senselessly killed in a preventable act of gun violence. Again, we need to do something.”

First lady Jill Biden commented on the situation while at an event in Washington.

“We just learned about another shooting in Tennessee — a school shooting,” Biden said. “And I am truly without words. Our children deserve better. And we stand — all of us — we stand with Nashville in prayer.”

The shooting at The Covenant School marks the 128th mass shooting in 2023 alone, per data from Gun Violence Archive, which designates a mass shooting to be one in which at least four people are shot — not counting the perpetrator.

In 2021, following a May shooting at Rigby Middle School in Idaho, the Associated Press reported on the uncommon phenomenon of women and girls carrying out school shootings. Data aggregated by The Violence Project — encompassing 146 cases of mass shootings dating back to the 1980s — shows that women and girls committed only 2% of mass shootings and school shootings in America.

The AP’s reporting also included other recent studies by the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center, which indicated that most often, kids who plan or carry out school shootings are victims of bullying, have depression related to home life stress and demonstrated concerning behavior. The studies also deduced that most attackers were male and an overwhelming majority were white, at 63%.