At the end of the morning, an individual entered an elementary school in Nashville and opened fire with several weapons, killing six people including three children.
Three children and three adults were shot Monday in an elementary school in Nashville (Tennessee), in the southern United States, a tragedy that has reopened the debate on the ravages of firearms in this country.
According to local police chief John Drake, the bloodbath was committed by Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old transgender person, who was promptly killed by law enforcement. His services then told the local newspaper The Tennessean that he was a transgender man (born female but identifies as male).
• Three children and three adults
Armed with “at least two assault rifles and a pistol”, the individual entered the premises of a private Christian school in the morning, explained the spokesman for the local police, Don Aaron, at a press conference.
The assailant entered through a secondary door and fired numerous shots as he progressed through the establishment, “The Covenant School”, which has around 200 students and around 40 employees. The shooting did not take place in a classroom, according to News Channel 5 Nashville.
“Three children were fatally injured, as well as three adults,” added Don Aaron, adding that there were no other victims.
The three adults killed worked at the school, the American media said. CBS.
According to the firefighters, relayed by CNNteams quickly arrived on the scene and tried to save the victims who still showed “signs of life”.
• A 28-year-old former student
Officers were dispatched to the scene. After hearing gunfire upstairs, they “immediately” went there and “killed” the assailant, who was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m. local time, Don Aaron said.
His services then clarified on Twitter that the assailant had been identified and that he was a 28-year-old Nashville resident. Still according to the police, the assailant is a former student of the establishment.
“According to our preliminary investigation, at some point, [il] was a student at this school, but we’re not sure of the year,” Nashville Police Chief John Drake told US television.
Shortly following, law enforcement revealed that the assailant had left a manifesto behind, along with a detailed map of the scene.
The discovered manifesto indicates that other locations were listed as potential targets. The document “shows that there was going to be a killing in several places, and the school was one of them,” said Nashville Police Chief John Drake on American television.
• “Enough is enough” for the Democrats
The drama reignited calls from the White House to ban assault rifles, as a proposed law to that effect is blocked by opposition lawmakers.
“How many more children will have to be killed before the Republicans in Congress (…) adopt a ban on assault rifles?”, reacted the spokeswoman for the presidency Karine Jean-Pierre. “Enough is enough,” she said once more.
President Joe Biden called the shooting “heartbreaking,” “a family’s worst nightmare.”
The elected officials of the State of Tennessee also expressed their emotion on social networks. “I am devastated and heartbroken at the tragic news from the Covenant School,” tweeted Republican Senator Bill Hagerty, without addressing the sensitive subject of gun control.
• Painful precedents
The United States, where approximately 400 million firearms are in circulation, is frequently bereaved by deadly shootings, including in schools. The most striking tragedy was committed in 2012 in an elementary school in Connecticut, during which 20 children aged 6 and 7 were killed.
Such a traumatic event repeated itself in May 2022 when an 18-year-old man shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Between these two tragedies, a massacre committed in a high school in Florida, on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, triggered a vast national movement, spearheaded by young people, to demand stricter supervision of individual weapons in the United States.
Despite the mobilization of more than a million demonstrators, the United States Congress has not adopted ambitious legislation, many elected officials being under the influence of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), the first American lobby weapons.
