Nashville school shooting: Young woman kills three children and three adults

A woman armed with two assault rifles killed three children and three adults in a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville, police said.

The woman, aged 28, entered The Covenant School, for children aged 4 to 12, around 10am on Monday morning and began "firing multiple shots".

The shooter was pronounced dead after a confrontation with police shortly before 10.30am.

Metro Nashville Police previously believed the shooter was a teenage girl but have now confirmed she is a 28-year-old woman and they are investigating a possible connection to the private school.

Police believe the suspect was a former pupil at the school.

She was armed with two assault rifles and at least one pistol, the police department said.

She entered the school in Nashville, Tennessee, through a side entrance, and went from the first floor to the second floor firing multiple shots, police said.

Andrew McCabe, a former director of the FBI, told CNN it "is exceedingly rare" for mass shooting suspects to be female.

He said: "Mass shootings are committed overwhelmingly by males."

The victims were pronounced dead after arrival at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, officials said.

All three students had gunshot wounds from the incident at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school for about 200 students aged 4 to 12.

Three adults, who were taken to an emergency room, were also pronounced dead.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone else was wounded in the attack.

Young students were seen holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars to a nearby church to be reunited with their parents.

The female suspect was shot and killed by police in a lobby area on the second floor of the school, a police spokesman said.

Officers entered the first storey of the school and began clearing it. They heard shots coming from the second level and "immediately went to the gunfire", the spokesman said.

"They saw a shooter, a female, who was firing. The officers engaged her. She was fatally shot by responding police officers.

"There was a five-member team that was on the second floor at that time. Two individuals from that five member team opened fire on the shooter.

"We know at this point that this shooter is a female. She appears to be in her teens, although her identification has not been confirmed at this juncture.

"We know that she was armed with at least two assault type rifles and a handgun."

Joe Biden's spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, called the shooting "heartbreaking" and said the president was being updated on the incident.

Ms Jean-Pierre said while many of the facts of the case were still unknown, "too often our schools are being devastated by gun violence".

She reiterated Mr Biden's calls for legislation on an assault weapons ban.