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A 28-year-old woman killed three children and three staff at a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday before being shot dead by police, in the latest outburst of gun violence to shock the United States.
Armed with at least two assault rifles and a handgun, the shooter entered the Christian Covenant School from a side door before opening fire, Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron told a press conference.
Officers were on the scene within about 15 minutes of receiving the first emergency call around 10:00 am (1500 GMT), engaging the shooter who returned fire before she was shot dead.
The young woman, identified by police as a 28-year-old from Nashville, fired multiple shots as she advanced through the school, Aaron said. There was no initial indication of a motive for the shooting.
"We now know that there are three students who were fatally wounded, as well as three adults inside the school," Aaron said, specifying that the adults were among the 40-50 staff at the school.
"We are working to identify those victims, including the shooter."
He said there were no other injuries.
"All of the remaining students were able to be escorted out of the building with faculty and staff," Kendra Loney of the Nashville fire department said.
"We were on scene to help them mitigate anyone from seeing exactly what else was going on," she said.
"But we are sure that they heard the chaos that was surrounding this, so we do have mental health specialists and professionals that are at that reunification site for both the students and the families."
The Covenant School is a private Presbyterian institution with a little more than 200 students in preschool to roughly age 12.
School shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, where the proliferation of firearms has soared in recent years, though female shooters are extremely rare.
The White House called the latest school shooting "heartbreaking" and urged Republicans to back President Joe Biden's push for a ban on assault weapons commonly used in US mass shootings.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden had been briefed on the "heartbreaking news of another shooting of innocents" and she asked what Republicans were waiting for to "step up and act to pass the assault weapons ban."
Several elected officials in the state of Tennessee likewise took to social media to express their shock.
"Devastated and heartbroken about the tragic news at Covenant School," tweeted Senator Bill Hagerty.
"I'm grateful to law enforcement and first responders for their heroic actions."
Senator Marsha Blackburn thanked first responders and offered "prayer for those affected."
Legislation tackling gun violence has met with deadlock in Washington despite the public uproar over high-profile massacres such as the one at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in 2012, when 26 people, including 20 children were killed.
Last year, a shooter in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 students and two teachers.
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Jim Jordan's attempt to 'intimidate' Manhattan DA is a 'gross abuse of congressional power': conservative
March 27, 2023
The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, a Never Trump conservative and former GOP strategist, has been arguing that if Republicans were serious about moving on from former President Donald Trump, they would not be aggressively rallying to his defense in response to reports of a possible criminal prosecution by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.
Trump predicted that on Tuesday, March 21, he would be arrested in connection with the Stormy Daniels hush money case that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Jr. has been investigating. But six days later, on Monday morning, March 27, no such indictment had materialized. And if Trump does face some type of prosecution, it won't necessarily come from Bragg's office; he is also facing probes from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith as well as Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent Bragg a letter chastising him for his Trump-related probe. But Washington Post opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin, a Never Trumper, argues Jordan was out of line when he presumed to tell the Manhattan prosecutor how to do his job.
"MAGA Republicans, devoid of policy solutions and addicted to performance politics, act as if their House majority invests them with the power to rove the landscape to spot MAGA victims, skewer their enemies and defend their political allies," Rubin complains in a March 27 column. "That's not their job, and, as we are seeing with their attempt to intimidate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in his investigation of defeated former president Donald Trump, it's a gross abuse of congressional power. For starters, Congress has no business meddling with any ongoing investigation at any level."
Jordan and other Trump allies in Congress, the columnist emphasizes, are not "a supercharged prosecutorial supervisor."
"In our system of separation of powers," Rubin explains, "the duty to investigate and prosecute rests with the executive branch, either at the state or federal level. Attempts to politicize prosecutions and turn prosecutors into lackeys of right-wing legislatures is a dangerous trend that strikes at the heart of the impartial administration of justice and the rule of law. But it's not only Congress that is seeking to abuse prosecutorial independence."
The Post columnist, who often voted GOP in the past but has been a scathing critic of Trump and the MAGA movement, goes on to note that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis "removed Hillsborough County prosecutor Andrew Warren for, among other reasons, decrying abortion restrictions and bans on gender-affirming care." And she notes that in Georgia, Republicans are hoping to undermine "prosecutorial independence" by proposing a board that would allow them to fire local prosecutors.
MAGA Republicans, Rubin stresses, need to let prosecutors do their jobs — and that includes Judiciary Chairman Jordan.
"It doesn't matter if Jordan and his cohorts actually believe Bragg is abusing his office," Rubin writes. "It doesn’t matter if Bragg actually were using poor judgment in exercise of his prosecutorial discretion. It is not Congress' job to 'fix' these things. Congress is confined to its limited constitutional role. That, too, is what we call the "rule of law.'"
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Marjorie Taylor Greene blames Biden and other 'gun grabbers' for Nashville school shooting
March 27, 2023
In the immediate aftermath of a school shooting in Nashville that left at least seven people dead including three children, Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed Joe Biden, Democrats, and gun control advocates.
The shooting happened at Covenant School, a Christian private school, The Metro Nashville Police Department said. The suspect, a 28-year-old Nashville woman, was fatally shot by police, The Associated Press reports.
Greene blamed gun free school zone laws that passed in the 1990s when Biden served in the Senate, in particular, for Monday's shooting.
“Joe Biden’s gun free school zones have endangered children at schools leaving them as innocent targets of sick horrible disturbed people ever since he worked as a Senator to pass this foolish law,” Greene tweeted.
RELATED: Woman hijacks Fox News report in Nashville to make plea for gun safety laws
“What a fool. What a failure.”
Greene blamed gun control advocates, who she described as “gun grabbers.”
“Gun grabbers like Joe Biden and Democrats should give up their Secret Service protection and put themselves on the same level as our unprotected innocent precious children at school.
“School shootings should NEVER happen and will end immediately when our nation's children are defended the same way Joe Biden is by good guys with guns!!!”
Nashville Mayor John Cooper tweeted: “In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting.:
“My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Our entire city stands with you.”
Greene also thanked first responders.
“My prayers are with the victims and families at the Covenant School in Nashville. Another absolutely horrific needless tragedy. Children and school staff should always be protected the same way politicians, money, precious stones, and gold are protected, but even more so, by good guys with guns," she tweeted.
“Thank God for good guys with guns and thank God a good guy with a gun killed the evil mentally deranged shooter today.”
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