Three children and three adults have died following a shooting at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee, according to an official at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

A 28-year-old woman with two “assault-type rifles and a handgun” opened fire inside The Covenant School, police said.

The suspect, identified by police as Audrey Hale, 28, of Nashville.

The shooting unfolded Monday morning at the Covenant School, a Christian school for students in preschool through sixth grade.

A heavily armed former student shot through a locked school door before killing three children and three staff members at a private Christian campus in Nashville on Monday.

The shooter fatally wounded an 8-year-old, two 9-year-olds, a custodian, a substitute teacher and the head headmistress before responding officers killed the 28-year-old attacker.

The shooter had planned extensively for the attack, police said.

“There were maps drawn of the school, in detail of surveillance, entry points,” Drake said. “We know and believe that entry was gained through shooting through one of the doors.”

The shooter was killed on the school’s second floor. Hale had two “assault-type rifles and a handgun, according to the official.

The three students killed were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney.

Substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, school head Katherine Koonce, 60, and custodian Mike Hill, 61, were also killed, police said.

Five police officers came upon the shooter, and two opened fire. The shooter entered the school through a “side entrance” on the first floor.

“By 10:27 the shooter was deceased”.

On a normal day of class, there would be 209 students and 42 staff members on campus, Aaron said.

The school was founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, and shares the same address as the church. 

The fire department helped usher the children out of the school, carefully trying to help them from seeing the carnage.