When will these acts of evil end? A 28-year-old Nashville woman is responsible for the deaths of 3 students and 3 adults inside The Covenant School, a private Nashville Christian Elementary School. She is also dead. The shooter is identified as trans female Samantha Hyde, birth name Audrey Hale. Hale was engaged in gunfire by police while on the second floor of the school. She carried out the attack with two AR-style weapons and a handgun.

Two MNPD officers who entered the building and went to the sounds of gunfire engaged the shooter on the second floor and fatally shot her. She was deceased by 10:27 am. Police say the shooting was not random, and that the shooter was a former student, according to chief John Drake.

The chief said the families of all six victims had been notified. The children were identified by Nashville police as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all 9 years old. Three adults were identified as Cynthia Peak, 61; Mike Hill, 61; and Katherine Koonce, 60, who was the head of the school. Peak was a substitute teacher and Hill was the custodian.

Right now I will refrain from saying the ages, other than to say I was literally moved to tears to see this and the kids as they were being ushered out of the building, Drake said.

It remains unclear how she gained access to the school. According to the chief, the school doors were all locked.

There was a door that was entered. All doors were locked, to our understanding, and how exactly she got in, at this point, is still under investigation, Drake said.

The school did have a school shooter protocol in place. The school has students from preschool through sixth grade and on a normal day and about 200 students and 40 staff members on campus.

Words From President Joe Biden

At a White House event hosting a summit for women-owned small businesses, Biden commended the local police, who he said responded: “incredibly swiftly, within minutes, to end the danger.”

We have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart, ripping the soul of this nation, ripping at the very soul of the nation,” Biden said. And we have to do more to protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons.

Biden said that the shooter had two assault weapons and a pistol and said, “I call on Congress again to pass my assault weapons ban. It’s about time that we begin to make some more progress.”

Female Active Shooters Are Rare

Female active shooters are rare in the U.S., according to data collected on the topic.

Approximately 17 active shootings have been carried out by women in the country since 1979, according to an NBC News tally. Seven of them, including Monday’s shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, were school shootings.

Before Monday, the most recent active shooting conducted by a female was in May 2021, when a sixth grader in Idaho pulled a gun out of her backpack and shot two students and a custodian before a teacher took the gun away. 

This shooting marks the third school shooting in 2023.

 

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