6 killed in school shooting in Nashville

(Image credit: AP Photo/John Amis)

published 27 March 2023

Three children and three adults are dead after a 28-year-old woman opened fire inside a Nashville private school on Monday morning. The attack marks the 129th mass shooting in the U.S. in 2023.

Authorities believe the gunwoman — identified as Audrey Hale, per NBC News — was "at one point" a student at the Covenant School, a private Christian institution that teaches preschool through 6th grade, though they were not able to say when.

The perpetrator entered the building through a side door and was carrying two assault-style rifles and a handgun, per The New York Times. Upon arrival, law enforcement "heard shots coming from the second level. They immediately went to the gunfire. When the officers got to the second level, they saw a shooter, a female, who was firing. The officers engaged her. She was fatally shot by responding police officers," spokesperson Don Aaron told reporters. How Hale was able to enter the school in the first place is "still under investigation," added Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake.

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Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.

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