Officers confronted shooter on the second floor of the building, police say

On Monday, 15th November, police responded to reports of an active shooter at the Covenant School in Nashville. According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, officers arrived at around 10:15 a.m. and went through the first level of the building before hearing gunshots from the second level, where they encountered the shooter, identified as a female teenager. Police then shot the shooter. According to local news outlets, the teenager died of her injuries. The police swiftly secured the area and no students or staff members were injured during the incident. The school was placed on lockdown while the incident was resolved.

The authorities have not publicly given a motive for the shooting, nor have they confirmed if the shooter was a student at the school. However, some students and faculty members tweeted that the suspect had been enrolled in the school. On Monday afternoon, the school released a statement saying that all students and faculty had been evacuated safely and that it was cooperating with the authorities’ investigation.

According to Everytown Research, there have been at least 154 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in the US in 2021. This year has already been the deadliest for school shootings in the US since the organization began tracking them in 1971. The latest incident comes just a few weeks after three teenagers were fatally shot at a high school in Michigan and another four were injured. The number of gun deaths in the US is rising again after a slight dip in 2020, despite the pandemic. In 2021, there have been more than 700 homicides in Baltimore and over 700 homicides in Chicago, contributing to a sharp rise in gun-related deaths in both cities.

While many organizations are advocating for stronger gun control legislation, the issue has become increasingly politically divisive in the US. On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a lower court decision striking down a Michigan law banning the open carry of guns at polling places. The decision came just weeks after two individuals were arrested for bringing guns to a polling station in Virginia. These events underscore both the difficulty of implementing gun control measures and the ongoing threat of gun violence in the US.



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