- Video showed children holding hands after a mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school Monday.
- Three students and three staffers were shot dead at The Covenant School, police said.
Video footage captured the heartbreaking moments when children at a Nashville, Tennessee, elementary school were hand-in-hand as they were escorted to safety after a woman shot and killed three students and three staffers at the school on Monday.
Cell phone video published by the Associated Press shows the students holding hands as they were led away from The Covenant School — a private Christian school — following the massacre.
Victims included three 9-year-olds, identified by police as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney. Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61, were also killed, according to Nashville police.
Reporters with the local news outlet WTVF said during a live broadcast that they heard children singing as they got off of a school bus at a reunification center after the shooting. The reporters speculated that school staff may have started a song to keep the kids from crying.
Police said that the Monday morning mass shooting was carried out by a 28-year-old woman from Nashville.
The suspect died after being shot by authorities, according to police.
—The Associated Press (@AP) March 27, 2023
The mass shooting marks the 129th recorded this year, according to Brady, a non-profit working to prevent gun violence.
Brady president Kris Brown called the shooting "yet another senseless attack on the most innocent members of our society" in a statement.
"We do not have to live like this, nor should we ever accept this as our reality. Our children deserve a life free from worry of being gunned down while learning their ABCs," Brown said.