US SCHOOL SHOOTING - TRAGEDY IN NASHVILLE

THERE SEEMS TO BE NO END TO THE GUN VIOLENCE IN THE USA AS SIX ARE KILLED AT A TENNESSEE SCHOOL

- Michael Crooks 

In the normally quiet Green Hills neighbourhood of Nashville, on the Monday morning of March 27, sirens and hovering helicopters were the first sign that something was wrong. “It sounded like a war zone out here,” said local woman Patricia Mey. Nearby within the walls of a local private elementary school, three children and three adults lay dead, victims of yet another mass shooting in the US.

“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper wrote on Twitter. “My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Our entire city stands with you.”

But unlike most of the many mass shootings in the US since last century, this one was different: the killer was female. After murdering six people at Nashville, Tennessee’s Covenant School, local 28-yearold Audrey Elizabeth Hale died in a shootout with police. Authorities said the woman, who identified as transgender and used male pronouns on a LinkedIn page, was a former student at the Presbyterian church school and had planned the atrocity, leaving behind a “manifesto”.

“It’s sick. We have to do more to stop gun violence,” said US President Joe Biden. “It’s ripping our communities apart, ripping at the very soul of the nation.”