Three children and three adults were shot dead Monday in an elementary school in Nashville, in the south of the United States, a drama with still unclear circumstances which has reopened the debate on the ravages of firearms in this country. The individual who committed the bloodbath, who was promptly shot by officers who arrived on the scene, was identified by police as a 28-year-old female and transgender person, going by the name of Audrey Hale, but her LinkedIn profile seems indicate a willingness to use masculine pronouns.
The assailant entered a small private Christian school in Tennessee's capital, The Covenant School, in the middle of the morning, armed with two assault rifles and a pistol, shooting through a glass door. He made his way to the first floor of this establishment, which he had attended as a student, firing numerous shots and killing three children, aged 8 to 9, and three adults, aged 60. at age 61.
The name of one of the victims, identified as Katherine Koonce, matches that of the school principal, according to the school's website. Quickly dispatched to the scene, officers immediately shot the shooter and pronounced him dead a quarter of an hour after the first call for help, according to police spokesman Don Aaron.
During the assault, one of the teachers managed to call her daughter. "She told me she was hiding in a closet and it was shooting everywhere," Avery Myrick told local channel WSMV4. Relieved that her mother made it out alive, Ms Myrick said she "felt sorry for everyone" who lost loved ones in the carnage.
Anxious parents marched all day through a church to pick up the sheltered children. The motive, still unknown, may be related to a "grudge" against the school, noted Nashville Police Chief John Drake. The school, which was founded by the local Presbyterian Church, is housed on its premises, The New York Times reported. One of the children killed, according to the American newspaper, was Hallie Scruggs, the daughter of the pastor of the church, Chadd Scruggs.
A "manifesto" found during a search of Audrey Hale's home pointed to other potential targets, he said. This document, along with a map "showing the entrances" to the school, and additional "writings" found in his vehicle, seem to indicate that the carnage was premeditated.
President Joe Biden expressed his dismay at the "repugnant" crime and ordered that the White House flags be flown at half-mast. Gun violence "rips at the very soul of our nation," he commented from the White House, calling again on Congress to ban assault rifles. The Democrat has long pleaded for the US Parliament to prohibit, or at least restrict, the possession of these weapons designed to cause a maximum number of victims, but he comes up against the refusal of the opposition. “I am devastated and heartbroken over the tragic news from the Covenant School,” tweeted Republican Senator Bill Hagerty.
About 400 million firearms are in circulation in the United States, where in 2020 they caused more than 45,000 deaths by suicide, accident or homicide, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). ). And for the first time that year, guns became the leading cause of death among young people aged 1 to 19, with 4,368 deaths, ahead of car accidents and overdoses, according to the CDC. Bloodbaths in schools represent only a tiny portion, but mark the spirits more.
The United States was particularly shaken by the carnage committed in 2012 at a school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut (20 children killed), and in May 2022 in Uvalde, Texas (19 children and 2 teachers). Between these two tragedies, a massacre committed in 2018 in a high school in Parkland, Florida, had led to a vast mobilization. But Congress never passed meaningful reforms, fiercely opposed by the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) lobby group. Joe Biden's calls to ban assault rifles are hardly more likely to succeed. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from February showed that 51% of Americans oppose it and only 47% support it.
