Former student invades Christian school in US, kills six

Police in Nashville are digging into the background and motivations of a former student who entered a Christian elementary school armed with AR-style weapons and detailed maps and opened fire, killing three children and three adults.

The shooter, identified as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, was shot and killed by police during the Monday attack, leaving behind “drawn out” maps of the Covenant School detailing “how this was all going to take place,” Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said.

As police worked to piece together what led up to the violence, officials said they had determined where the shooter lived in the Nashville area and had interviewed Hale’s father. Investigators were expected to spend Tuesday processing the scene and gathering more details about what happened during the roughly 14 minutes of terror at the elementary school.

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As the shooting unfolded, worried parents rushed to the school and frightened students and teachers were forced to take cover as shots rang out and police confronted the attacker, adding the grieving campus community to a long list of other US schools marked by gun violence.

“All three students shot and killed were 9 years old. They were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. Three adults killed in the shooting were identified as 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce and 61-year-old Mike Hill, police said.

The shooter was “someone that had multiple rounds of ammunition, prepared for confrontation with law enforcement, prepared to do more harm than was actually done,” the police chief said in a news conference.

So far, little is known about the shooter. Hale graduated from Nossi College of Art & Design in Nashville last year, the president of the school confirmed to CNN, and a LinkedIn profile says Hale worked as a freelance graphic designer and a part-time grocery shopper.

After the shooter was killed, the children were evacuated from the school and taken in buses to be reunited with their families. Video showed the children holding hands and walking in a line out of the school, where there were community members embracing.

The Covenant School is a private Christian school founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church and teaches preschool through 6th grade, according to its website.