A former high school classmate of the suspected 28-year-old female that killed at least three children and three adults Monday inside a Na...
A former high school classmate of the suspected 28-year-old female that killed at least three children and three adults Monday inside a Nashville Christian school told The Daily Wire the alleged gun woman did not fit the “school shooter archetype.”
The shooter, whom the Daily Wire will not name per company policy, was a white 28-year-old Nashville woman who recently identified as a man. Just before 10:30 a.m. on Monday, the shooter entered the Covenant School, a Presbyterian preschool through 6th-grade institution in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, “armed with two assault-type rifles and a handgun,” police said until law enforcement fatally shot her.
The former classmate, who spoke anonymously due to the nature of the story, graduated with the suspect from the Nashville School of the Arts in 2014, where they took visual arts classes together and ran track at Martin Luther King Jr. School in Nashville.
“I haven’t seen [the shooter] since graduation as I moved, and we didn’t keep in touch,” the source said. “But my memories from high school are all pleasant.”
According to the source, they knew the suspected shooter before she began identifying as a male.
“I mainly knew her as ‘she’ before the transition,” the source said. “When she transitioned, no one was surprised,” noting the school had “several LGBTQ and other trans students.”
The source described the shooter as a “well-liked, sweet, and funny” student that engaged in after-school activities and projects, adding staff and students at the school did not “condemn or tease” her.
“Not at all what one would expect as the school shooter archetype,” the source said. “Everyone in our class is losing it online right now.”
In a private Facebook group for Nashville School of the Arts alumni, one member wrote that the person they knew in high school “was so opposite from who they were this morning.”
“It’s tough to grasp,” the user wrote. “I know this is a shock to the NSA fam. My heart breaks for those sweet families who lost their loved ones this morning.”
Police identified the six victims, including three 9-year-old children and three adults 60 years old and above.
According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, the victims are “Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9, Cynthia Peak, age 61, Katherine Koonce, age 60, and Mike Hill, age 61.” Koonce was the head of the Covenant School.
Nashville Police Chief John Drake said the shooting was a “targeted attack.” The police chief said authorities have a theory on the shooter’s motive but are not ready to share it yet.
Law enforcement said they found “a manifesto” along with maps of the school drawn in detail that included points of entry. Outside the suspect’s home, several ATF, FBI, and local law enforcement authorities could be seen transporting several large bags from inside the house to unmarked vehicles parked in the driveway.
AFP News Agency reported the shooter had planned to attack several locations, according to city’s police chief.
The suspect left behind a manifesto that “indicates that there was going to be shootings at multiple locations”
The anonymous source told The Daily Wire none of the suspect’s contacts knew anything about a manifesto “like the police are claiming.”
“Even her close friends are shocked and heartbroken,” the source said.