Nashville, Tennessee - At a private Christian school the suspect once attended in the state's capital city on Monday, the heavily armed 28-year-old fatally shot three children and three adult staff members before being shot and killed by police, according to authorities.

Although the motive was not immediately clear, Police Chief John Drake told reporters that the suspect had left behind a "manifesto" and other writings that investigators were looking through. He also had drawn detailed maps of the school, including the location of the building's entrances.

The Covenant School, where most of the students are of elementary school age, was the scene of the most recent incident in an epidemic of deadly mass gun violence that has regularly terrorized even the most beloved of American institutions.

Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, of the Nashville area, was identified as the suspect by Drake, who used female pronouns to refer to the assailant. The chief stated that the suspect was identified as transgender but provided no further details.

According to a police spokesperson, Hale used the pronouns he/him. Hale used male pronouns on a LinkedIn page that listed recent jobs in graphic design and grocery delivery.

Police later released a school video showing the assailant shooting through glass doors and roaming the halls with a semi-automatic rifle. In the video, Hale wore a black vest over a white T-shirt, camouflage pants, and a backward red baseball cap.

During an early evening news conference, Drake stated that police were working on a theory about what caused the shooting and that they would "put that out as soon as we can." He stated that the suspect had no prior criminal history.

Drake later told NBC News that investigators believed the shooting was motivated by "some resentment" the suspect felt "for having to go to that school" as a younger person.

The police chief did not specify the nature of this presumed resentment, or whether it was related to the suspect's gender identity or the school's Christian orientation. Drake stated that while the school was targeted, the individual victims were chosen at random.

According to police spokesperson Don Aaron, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department started receiving calls about a shooter at the school at 10:13 a.m. Arriving officers reported hearing gunfire coming from the second floor of the building.

The attacker was shot by two members of a five-person team in a lobby area, and by 10:27 a.m., the suspect had been declared dead.

The police department's response, according to Aaron, was prompt. The suspect, according to the police, was carrying two assault-style weapons and a 9 mm pistol.

Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, three 9-year-old victims, were identified along with staff members Mike Hill, 61, a school custodian, Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher, and Katherine Koonce, 60, who was listed as the "head of school." on the Covenant website.

Responding in Washington to the most recent school shooting, President Joe Biden encouraged the U.S. Congress once more to pass tougher gun control legislation.

"It's wiped out," Biden said, tending to the issue amid an occasion at the White House and encouraging Congress once more to pass a boycott on assault-style weapons. "We need to do more to halt weapon viciousness." It's tearing our communities apart, tearing the soul of this country."

U.S. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, said on Twitter that her office stands "prepared to help" those impacted by the shooting.

But Rosanne Cash, a daughter of the late Nashville nation music star Johnny Cash and a singer-songwriter in her own right, reacted by criticizing Blackburn's ties to the National Rifle Association's (NRA) weapon campaign.

"You vote against each common sense weapon control charge that comes over your work area, you've taken over $1 million from the NRA; and you rank 14th in all of Congress for NRA commitments. "Save us the hand-wringing," Cash said on Twitter.
 
At the state level, Tennessee did away with its allow prerequisite for carrying a concealed handgun in 2021 and presently permits anybody matured 21 or more seasoned to carry a gun, either transparently or concealed, without a permit, as long as they are lawfully permitted to buy the weapon.

Having a handgun is banned in Tennessee for anyone who has been indicted for a lawful offense, including savagery or drugs.

The Pledge School, established in 2001, may be a service of the Contract Presbyterian Church within the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, with around 200 understudies, agreeing to the school's site. It serves preschoolers through sixth graders and will have a dynamic shooter program in 2022, according to WTVF-TV.

Nashville Chairman John Cooper communicated his sensitivity for the casualties and wrote on social media that his city "joined the feared, long list of communities to become involved in a school shooting."

There have been 89 school shootings – characterized as any incident in which a weapon is released on school property – within the U.S. in 2023, concurring to the K-12 School Shooting Database, web site established by analyst David Riedman. The final year saw 303 such episodes, the most of any year within the database, which goes back to 1970.