are taken if your little one is behind the glass. we pray for nashville today and for the parents there and all the other schools across the country who watch this, too. and just pray to keep them safe. thank you for watching "outnumbered" this hour. "america reports" now. >> sandra: fox news alert, horrific shooting at a christian elementary school in nashville, three children confirmed to have been killed. hello and welcome, sandra smith in new york. >> john: john roberts in washington, sandra, not how we hoped to start off the week. local reports saying the shooting began after 10:30 local time this morning when officers were called for an active shooter, enrollment between 195 to 210 students. it's located about five miles southwest of downtown nashville. >> sandra: then we started

getting word three children had been rushed to a nearby hospital. they have now all been pronounced dead after arrival from gunshot wounds. police are set to hold a news conference, got an update moments ago, that should be happening near the top of this hour. confirmed the shooter is dead after being engaged by officer on the ground. >> john: we don't know if there was a school resource officer or the police were the first to respond to the scene, it appears they acted in a way to take the shooter down as quickly as possible. we are still filling in a lot of the details. when you consider this christian academy, again, five miles southwest of nashville on its twitter site, its motto, shepherding minds and

celebrating childhood, it's shattered for so many this horrible morning. >> sandra: the shooter died after being engaged by officer, according to the nashville metro police. they put it out in a statement. it's not immediately clear whether the shooter died by taking his or her own life or shot by police. we are awaiting a lot of details yet to be learned in all this. we hope to get more information when the news conference begins a short time from now. >> john: jonathan serrie is at the southeast bureau in atlanta, he has been following this and making contact with the sources. >> yeah, john, the actual police late this morning said they responded to an active shooter t the covenant school on burton hills drive. the shooter was engaged by officers and is dead. the nashville fire department confirmed they had multiple patients that were transported. vanderbilt university medical center confirmed three children

were transported to their children's hospital on campus, monroe carroll junior hospital, all three suffered gunshot wounds and sadly dead after arrival. covenant is a private and christian school founded as a ministry of nashville's covenant presbyterian church. it serves children in grades from preschool through 6th grade. located in the upscale green hills community of nashville. so not the type of area or school that you would expect something like this to happen. clearly a shock to the surrounding community and certainly to the parents of the school itself. children were evacuated from the school. we saw them being transported away on several yellow school busses, bringing them to reunification center set up at woodmont baptist church two miles away from the school. parents are being told to meet their children at woodmont

baptist church. 2100 woodmont boulevard. nashville district attorney has requested assistance from the tennessee bureau of investigation. tbi is sending special agents and additional personnel to the scene to assist local authorities with that, both tbi and local police say there is no current threat to public safety, obviously, because of the responding officers taking out that shooter and it appears, i believe, that this person who opened fire on the school acted alone. but we expect to hear further details in a news conference shortly, john. >> sandra: john, just looking that we have confirmed that the nashville office of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms and explosives has deployed resources to assist the police and their response to the shooting. tennessee bureau of investigation is also sending agents to the scene. so as far as federal resources,

because marsha blackburn, the senator from tennessee put out her own statement she as well as other state officials have been in contact with federal authorities on all of this. what do we know about the involvement and coordination so far, jonathan? >> this is all hands on deck situation. you have the federal authorities, you have state authorities involved, trying to figure out who was responsible for this. obviously the shooter is now dead, the alleged shooter dead, and so we are not going to get any information out of them, obviously, but they are going to try to piece together what led up to this event. there is also a report that we have not been able to independently confirm but local tv station wsmv is reporting that two adults are also dead. that's in addition to three children who were confirmed dead to us by the vanderbilt university medical center.

they had been brought to the children's hospital there on the vanderbilt campus, all of them had suffered gunshot wounds, sandra. >> john: jonathan serrie with the update, we'll let you continue working your sources. we should say also here that if you are just tuning in and you have a student who was at that school or you know a parent who has a student at that school, students are being reunified at the woodmont baptist church, 2100 woodmont boulevard there in green hills. dan linski, if the reports are correct, chief, what jonathan serrie just told us would bring the total number of dead to five. tragic three children were killed, now hearing two adults may have expired as well. this just goes to show that the school shootings can happen anywhere. this is an affluent area, maybe

6% of all school shootings happen at private schools, but this type of tragedy, violence can strike anywhere. >> it absolutely can and what we do know from prior tragedies, the initial report are often wrong. we have reports of lives that have been taken, and unfortunately it's possible the numbers could grow larger. and we don't know how many people were injured. i was listening to the nashville fire scanner and they don't anticipate more ambulances arriving at the hospital. it could mean there are some in the school not viable and not transported, and hopefully they would update as quickly as possible. i would encourage anyone who has a family member, a friend, a child in the school, give them the information where reunification can occur.

hoping the first responders are giving the ability to call or text parents, let them know, let the parents know their kids are ok, the less trauma induced in the community. that is going to have to be recovered from. it's not just assaults that occur initially, this community has been wounded and this community is going to need to be helped and healed as they go through a process that unfortunately we are living all too often in the united states. >> sandra: dan, as you can see and our viewers can see on the bottom portion of our screen, fox news has confirmed in addition to three children dead, two adults have now died in this nashville shooting. dan, we await further information on exactly who those adults were, whether they were administrators, who exactly was in the building. we obviously don't have those details yet. we are waiting this news conference. we are told by the police should be happening a short time from now. we hope to learn more, it could be teachers, we just don't know yet, dan.

>> yeah. and authorities need to, you know, get information out as quickly as possible, they want to make sure they have accurate information so that they can inform the public of exactly what went on so far. and what they need to do going forward to, you know, help reunify the parents and the kids, maintain that crime scene, identify who the individual is, find out the why if we can ever determine the why, and see if there was any issues or concerns that were broadcast here that were missed. hopefully this is another example of somebody who fell through the cracks and the red flags were there and not acted upon prior to this individual coming and you know destroying this community of religious school. >> john: dan, when we consider what happened at the covenant school here, our minds go back to uvalde, texas not too long ago. held an active shooter drill nine weeks prior to the massacre

there. this school apparently knowing that it was not immune from the ills of society held an active shooter drill last year. you know, it's just -- it just really pains your mind to think these schools prepare for the worst hoping that it will never happen, and then it does happen. >> yeah, the only solace we can take from that, because they did prepare, or they do prepare, we have seen events over and over again, those preparations have saved lives. have mitigated the loss of lives in these events, loss of lives is devastating and tragic, but because schools have trained, prepared, building design work have teachers and others stepped up and stepped in the way of harm for our students. they have been able to save lives. that's the only silver lining. it is a shame that we have to have conversations with children

about active assailant drills as they are trying to get an education. unfortunately that's the world we live in, and we've got to make sure we are prepared and as you said, you know, we prepare and train and then we hope and pray it never comes. >> sandra: dan, as far as what's happening on the ground there, we know there has been a reunification center set up for parents. we have seen various reports that some children, you see the school busses here, were let out of the school, put on these busses and driven to the reunification centers to meet with their parents. some kids were walked out hand-in-hand and walked along way away from the school as well into a church building, we are told. so there could be multiple reunification centers, we know of the one right now, but certainly that is why we are waiting any details from the police as obviously this is a situation that is still unfolding on the ground, dan, you can imagine parents are pulling up. i assume it could be a set of

parents on the screen here. they are showing up parking where they can and running to find their children, dan. >> yeah, and we need to control that as much as we can and try and take the trauma away from the parents. the fact they have a tweet or text saying their kids were at a school where there was an active shooter event is a life-changing trauma. as quick as we can, we want to reunify the parents with the kids. and also put resources around them. the kids have just been traumatized beyond belief and making sure we have people, counselors who can support them, who can help them get through this immediate process and stage as well as the upcoming days, weeks and months as they try and, you know, figure out how they survive and grow after this horrific event. but it's important to get those parents with those kids as quickly as possible, and again,

in any way we can get parents to communicate with the kids we want to make sure it's happening. >> sandra: dan linskey joining us by phone. >> john: john serrie has an update. additional two people deceased as a result of the shooting has now been confirmed? >> that has been confirmed. vanderbilt university medical center confirming that among the victims are three children and two adults. those two adults were the additional victims we had learned about. all five victims have died. initially you had vumc confirming three children transported to the hospital, all three of them suffering gunshot wounds, all three of them pronounced dead at the hospital, and then vumc confirming that

they also received two adults at their adult emergency department, both adults were pronounced dead and it's still unclear whether these were teachers, whether these were administrators, but again, three children and two adults and the children most likely very young. this was a school that served pre-k through 6th grade. we are talking about an elementary school here, just a shock happening at a christian school, small private christian school in an upscale community of nashville, john. >> sandra: jonathan, we are at the point now, we are leaning heavily on getting new information from this press briefing. as you can imagine, this is at the point where they are trying to get all their ducks in a row, gather any information they have at this moment in time to obviously confirm the number of deaths, on the screen, three children have perished, two adults dead in this nashville school shooting.

we are waiting on more information about the shooter, who this person was, whether that shooter took his or her own life or whether that person was shot in exchange with police. we know the police did enter and exchange with the shooter but we don't exactly know how that played out. so we are waiting any further details, jonathan. >> yeah, the department, the metro nashville police department said the shooter was engaged by police and was dead, but did not specify whether it was a result taking fire from officer or self-inflicted, sandra. >> john: jonathan serrie in our southeast bureau with the latest. and sandra, in a moment like this, you see the bus loads of children being taken from the school down there to the reunification area, you know, comes to mind what happened in uvalde, texas where all the

children perished and all the parents were waiting with such anguish to see if their child was coming back. remember sandy hook elementary, a classroom virtually wiped out and the anguish of all the parents as they were awaiting to see if their child was coming home or not. you just -- you feel so much for the parents who were involved here, and it's a small school. it's about 200 students. so that's, you know, probably one class per grade, maybe a couple classes per grade. and you can just imagine as they await news on their loved ones. >> sandra: some local affiliates reporting one of the reporter's mother-in-law was working at the front desk, she stepped aside for a break, she came back she heard the gunshots. so she -- obviously there are so many different stories in a local community happening like

this where everybody is trying to establish where everyone is, which is also, john, why authorities right now are asking people please to stay away from the unification sites so that, unless you are a direct parent involved and trying to meet up with your child, please avoid the area, it can get very congested and hard to reunite the parents with the children. you can imagine a lot of emotions right now, john, in a situation like that. bring in civil rights attorney and fox news contributor leo terrell as we look on there at nashville and authorities will update us shortly with the news conference. leo. >> thank you, sandra and john. unbelievable, heartbreaking, and bothered by the tragic shooting that we have had in the country often, and what i'm hoping for is to get more details as to what went on. bodycam footage from the officer who engaged the alleged shooter, the possibility of cameras within the school, and whether

or not the school had a campus resource officer who was armed. a lot of questions that i'm going to wait and hold off until we have had a very, very important press conference. but i think the key here is the unification of those who are victims, families, students and what goes next, but again, first reportings are not most accurate and again, there's a lot of evidence that we won't see until later on. >> john: yeah, senator marsha blackburn weighing in, chuck and i are heart broken to hear about the covenant school shooting in nashville. we stand ready to assist. thank you to the first responders working on-site. please join us in prayer for those affected. to the point that you were making, leo, so much about this that we don't know, all that we know is that this was a beautiful christian academy in a lovely neighborhood of nashville. this press conference is about to start here, somebody is walking up to the podium. let's jump in here and see if

they are actually saying something. >> law enforcement overview of what's happened this morning with me is kendra loany from the nashville fire department will talk about the fire department actions in regard to this morning's call. this is going to be a brief update as to what has occurred. there will be more from this spot later in the morning with chief john drake and others. at 10:13 this morning, the police department received a call of an active shooter inside covenant school, covenant presbyterian church. the police department response was swift. officers entered the first story of the school, began clearing it. they heard shots coming from the second level, they immediately went to the gunfire. when the officers got to the second level, they saw a shooter, a female, who was firing. officers engaged her, she was

fatally shot by responding police officers. there was a five-member team who was -- that was on the second floor at that time, two individuals from that five-member team opened fire on the shooter. we know at this point that this shooter is a female, she appears to be in her teens, although her identification has not been confirmed at this juncture. we know that she was armed with at least two assault-type rifles and a handgun. we are efforting now to identify her. she entered the school through a side entrance and traversed her way from the first floor to the second floor, firing multiple shots. we now know that there are three students who were fatally wounded as well as three adults inside the school. we are working to identify those

victims. including the shooter, a total of seven persons were killed as a result of this morning's incident at the school. by 10:27 the shooter was deceased. the officers had engaged the shooter, by 10:27, and she was deceased. i said the first call came in at 10:13 this morning. we'll have more details to give you later in the morning. chief drake will be here in a bit. now nashville fire. >> fire department crews are dispatched for active shooter incidents as well for medical support but also for an rtf response, which is a rescue task force response to go in alongside of police department response. our crews were on the scene to provide medical aid to any

survivors, but also be there for victims so that we could try lifesaving efforts in this case. so we went in as soon as it was safe for our responders to do so, to try to provide lifesaving efforts for those that were impacted by this incident and this tragedy. our crews were able to be on scene to pull out those that had viable signs of life, those that were still showing the option for -- to be saved, and we did make transport of three individuals -- three children and then two adults that were taken from the scene. our crews then set up a reunification unit. that reunification unit is at 2100 woodmont boulevard. that's where parents can go to be reunited with their children. all of the remaining students were able to be escorted out of the building with faculty and

staff. we are not sure about the processes that they had in place, but we were on scene to help them mitigate anyone from seeing exactly what else was going on, but we are sure that they heard the chaos that was surrounding this. so we do have mental health specialists and professionals at the reunification site for the students and the families that are going to be affected by this today. our oem units were able to provide busses to make transport from the covenant school to the reunification site. we had one bus that carried 74 students and faculty, staff members, to the reunification site and additional bus that had 34 students on them. so all of those persons were carried. it was difficult for us to kind of identify who was just there as part of staff or the church, versus who was there for the school because it's all housed in one building. at this time we were able to get that number of persons

transported out of the building and into that reunification site. so that is where parents can go to be reunited with their students. there is a hotline set up for parents to go, but right now go to 2100 woodmont boulevard, woodmont baptist church. additionally, we have a debriefing site set up for on-staff personnel working this incident, and there are mental health professionals set up there for them as well. there was one police officer that was injured with a hand injury as a result of making an attack on this incident, but other than that, no additional injuries to first responders or personnel responding to this. and as don mentioned earlier, we will have further updates coming later on in the afternoon. >> on a typical day there would

be about 209 students inside the school and approximately 40 to 50 staff members, about 42 staff members. i'll take just a couple of questions before we go back. [inaudible] >> how many injured, do you know -- [inaudible] >> an officer had a wound from cut glass, that is the only other injury that i'm aware of. [inaudible] >> three students are deceased. the three students who were shot are deceased. three staff members who were shot are deceased. that's a total of six victims and then you have the shooter who was engaged by two of our police officers, part of the five-member team and she is deceased, a total of seven individuals. no other gunshot victims

nonlethal at present. >> do you know how many people were shot before the police engaged the shooter? >> no. >> do you know if they shot anyone after they engaged the shooter, able to shoot anyone else? >> we did not know who she is at this juncture. we are trying to identify her. she does appear to be in her teens. with two assault-type rifles and at least one pistol. [inaudible] >> no, i'm not. >> was there an sro or sso working at the school? >> no, this is a church that operates a private school. there was no metro police personnel assigned to that building at any time. [inaudible] >> you said two? no, total of three adults, three adults who have been fatally wounded. [inaudible]

>> no. so, let me go over this again. you have a total of six victims. three students who were deceased, and three adult staff members from the school who are deceased. the shooter herself makes seven. i do not. [inaudible] >> there is video from the school that we are viewing now to try to learn exactly how all of this happened. >> can you say where the victims were located, in a hallway, a classroom? >> i cannot. as you know, five of the six were transported. so we will get that information later in the day. [inaudible] >> upper level part of the school, it's kind of a lobby-type area. it was not in a classroom, per se. all right. we'll be back shortly with more

detail. we'll tweet out, give you a 15-minute or so notice before the next one, ok. thanks. >> aren't you guys tired of covering this? aren't you tired of being here and having to cover all of these mass shootings? family vacation. with my son, visiting my sister-in-law. i have been lobbying in d.c. since we survived a mass shooting in july. i have met with over 130 lawmakers. how is this still happening? how are our children still dying and why are we failing them? gun violence is the number one killer of children and teens. it has overtaken cars. assault weapons are contributing to the border crisis and fentanyl, we are arming cartels with our guns and our loose gun laws and these shootings and these mass shootings will continue to happen until our lawmakers step up and pass gun safety legislation.

i'm pretty sure this was an unsecured weapon this teenager got ahold of. we can't even -- safe storage lakids from getting ahold of weapons that they shoot each other with. >> john: all right, so we'll get a break away, the reporter who was using that camera is obviously setting up to do a live report there, but the woman said it succinctly, aren't you tired of this, yes, we are, reporting on school shootings week in and week out, last week alicia acuna was waiting for her son to come out of a high school in denver after a shooting, uvalde, texas, sandy hook, and yes, as a nation we are tired of these. i don't mean to be speaking out of turn but i believe as a parent that there are a lot of people out there who are sick of these school shootings.

what's really curious about this is that this was, we don't know her name, but that this was a female who was involved in this shooting. we remember back to 1979, brenda spencer, when she opened fire at cleveland elementary school from across the street and killed a couple of people, saying she did not want to go to school because it was monday and she didn't like monday, the boom town rats immortalized in their song. but there have been a number of shootings involving female shooters over the years but very rare something like this happens, sandra. >> sandra: and one can assume based on the description, although can't assume anything at this point, it's a female teen shooter that the grade -- that the grade of this school goes up to 6th grade, kindergarten through 6th grade. you would not quite have teenagers in the 6th grade yet, we don't know if this would have been a student in the 6th grade. but all they can do is describe what they know so far and she is

female and that they believe she is in her teens. they do not have the identity of that shooter yet. what they did give us was some facts about what we do know. they said she entered the building through a side door at the first floor of the school and went to the second floor. she was armed with two assault-type rifles, what was described, and a handgun. and then there was ultimately a phone call, 10:13 a.m. that was placed to police. the shooter was shot and killed after an exchange with the police at 10:27 a.m. so 14 minutes after the first call was made to police that shooter was shot in an exchange with police, fatally shot by the police officers. so this was a pretty fast situation where police got on the ground and were able to stop that shooter from making this any worse, john. >> john: in case folks at home

missed the top of it, when the spokesman for the nashville police department came up and described this, there was a call put in from the school, there was no school resource officer present at the school, it's a private school, it doesn't employ anybody from the nashville police department to look after the school. when police arrived, apparently just moments after the school was put in, they entered the first floor of the school and they began clearing that first floor. they then heard shots coming from the second floor, it was a team of five officers who entered the school, made their way up the stairs. they got to the top of the stairs, observed a female shooter, heard shots continuing to ring out. two of the five officers immediately engaged the shooter and took her down. so you can imagine if they hadn't been so swift in getting there, if there had been any kind of a delay, how much worse this could have all been, sandra. >> sandra: reunification is still happening there on the ground, parents arriving at the

scene to meet up with their children. jonathan serrie, an update on what we are learning now. jonathan. >> yeah, so really what the take home from this news conference as far as the victims, there was an additional adult fatality, that adult apparently died right there at the scene because this adult still unidentified was not among the five people transported to the hospital, two adults and three children, but all of the adults who were killed, police confirm were staff members. two of them taken to the hospital, three children taken to the hospital, all of them pronounced dead. and then you add that to the shooter who police say that they eliminated in gunfire when they responded there. you are talking of a total of seven fatalities in connection with this shooting at this small religious school in an upscale

neighborhood of nashville. clearly a shock. they are still trying to figure out the identity of the shooter. they said was female, appearing to be in her teens, but they have yet to confirm her identity and it's unclear whether she was either a current or former student or a complete stranger from the school. police obviously trying to get to the bottom of this. but clearly a shock for this normally quiet upscale community in nashville. >> sandra: jonathan serrie, you will obviously come back in with breaking news, still a lot of details we don't know, including the identity or motive of that shooter. thank you, jonathan. >> john: all right, sandra. bring in former fbi investigator bill daily. first of all, highly unusual this was a female shooter, by and large school shooters tend to be males between the ages of 18 to 22. there have been a handful of

incidents over the last 30, 40 years involving women, most famously involving as we pointed out a moment ago, brenda spencer in 1979 in san diego. age of the shooter -- sixth grade, my twins are in sixth grade, age 12, 13, depending when your birthday was, but a teenager would suggest somebody outside the sixth grade parameters. >> yeah, john, all those points well noted about females being in the minority of shooters in these type of incidents. also raise questions about what is the relationship of the shooter to the school. could it be a former student, could it be a sibling of one of the students there, we just don't know at this point. as we know from uvalde and other incidents, sometimes we need to hold ourselves back apart from getting ahead of ourselves

before we know too much what's going on. but the shooter entered through a side door does raise questions, and not finding fault at this point, and parents are finding out if the children are safe or not or dealing with the grief of a deceased child, but raise the question what was the access point, was this a kind of a break down of the security by design, what was in place, and we can get to some of the more broader issues and people talk about guns and access to guns, and trip wires that may have been picked up on were not picked up on, but security by design. and i say that, we go back to the covid days, john, hundreds of millions of dollars put aside for school preventive measure, whether it's air-conditioning filtration systems, don't know if it's all used this. rises to the level of a health crisis for

the students and protection of the students. i surely think we should be looking at access to funds to look at security by design for all the schools. this is a private christian school, you know, in a, perhaps just outside the main part of the city, it could be anywhere. as you pointed out earlier, shootings from denver, to florida, to connecticut, no one is immune from this. so i think we need to look more holistically and a solution, and does require how we tighten up, as the last hurdle the shooter would have to get through, what are the physical barriers and put in place in order to protect our children, those treasures of hours. >> sandra: a new statement out from the mayor, the nashville mayor on the shooting. a tragic morning nashville joined the dreaded long list of communities to experience a school shooting. my heart goes out, he says, to the families of the victims. our entire city stands with you.

as facts continue to emerge, i thank our first responders and medical professionals. and bill, to that point, learning the details a few moments ago, it does appear they got on the ground and they were able to address this situation quickly. the first call was to police 10:13 a.m. that shooter was killed in an exchange with police at 10:27, 14 minutes later, bill. >> yeah, those are facts quite clear and articulated by the police spokesperson and does also point out the fact in the same press conference there was no school resource officer, so these were police coming from adjoining areas who came together who went in in force and went towards the shooting right away, and so all those things are quite evident by this very narrow time frame. certainly narrow by our standards, but certainly an eternity for the people inside the school and for those people

who were being shot at the moment. but it goes to show you is that that immediate response, whether having a school resource officer in place or police who are equipped and educated to be able to go in and go into the direction of the shooting is key to kind of mitigating some of these exposures that could not be mitigated by physical access or other trip wires that may have been out there in the community before this incident. >> john: bill, when we take a look at this and keep in mind the last really, excuse me, horrific mass shooting at the robb elementary school in uvalde, some similarities and some differences. as you pointed out, the fact the shooter was able to enter through a side door, why wasn't that door locked. a similar situation in uvalde. when you take a look at the difference in the police response here, it is rather dramatic. a team of five officers from the nashville metro police department went to the school, got there within moments, and as they were clearing the first

floor and heard shots upstairs, they did not delay. they immediately moved toward the shooting and engaged with the shooter right then and there. they put aside any thoughts, any fears they might have had for their personal safety to get to the root of the problem and to take care of it as quickly as they possibly could, at least that's the initial reports from the police department. >> yeah, and certainly the timing, john, does kind of point to that, narrow window of time, does go to demonstrate that they were quite deliberate and intentional on what they had to do, perhaps we look at further and say what is that training that's involved, what was the commanding control put in place, or did the officers know this is what they needed to do, and also point out the fact that training, i think it was mentioned earlier, perhaps, by the former chief in boston, that training in the school is very important as well, so as much as we would like to kind of

eliminate the incidents from ever happening, but certainly reduce them down to very, very few, but nonetheless, you still need the training. whether it's police response, students and teachers in the schools, and again, it goes back to the question of, you know, who is immune. well, no one, unfortunately, is immune, and as we have seen from this school where it is and the other ones you mentioned before, john, you know, there's kind of a plethora of different circumstances but they all evolve around the same situation, where someone got into the school with a weapon, how they got the weapons, that investigation will go forward. how they got into the school is very important to me, because it's the last tripwire, the last line of defense we need to look at when we start looking at schools and whether it's attached to a church, whether it happens to be a stand alone in a rural area, inner city, happens to be in suburban setting, they all, unfortunately, have suffered the same consequences by someone physically getting

into the premise and committing these horrendous acts. >> john: studies have shown as well, bill, that overwhelmingly they happen at public schools, 94%, but that does leave 6% that happen at these private and/or parochial schools. bill daly, please stand by with us. >> sandra: joining us by phone is nashville city councilmember russ poley. please add to our coverage and help our viewers through sort of the images we have been taking in of the school, the church, the surrounding area, and what we should know about this school and the students and the teachers. >> well, the school is covenant presbyterian church and they established a school off of the church. it's a very small tight knit population. there are about 200 students

total in the school and so it's a very close community and this really hits very close to home. this is a terrible tragedy for this community. >> john: we can imagine, councilman, this is a horrible tragedy for the community. nobody expects that their school would be targeted, let alone a christian presbyterian school. when i was living in ridgewood, new jersey, any older daughter went to a pre-k at a presbyterian church and never thought anything like this would happen. but they did, they were aware at this school of the potential pit falls of modern society. they held an active shooter drill last year, and then this happened. so it goes to show you prepare for the worst hoping that the worst won't happen. on occasion it does, potentially your training, what you have done through the active shooter drills may save lives, but it reinforces the fact that in societies society, with this epidemic of school shootings,

that no one is immune, and that everyone needs to take the utmost precautions every day. >> that is correct. and i don't think anybody here expected when they attended this school that they had immunity from these things. i mean, sandy hook taught us a great lesson, columbine taught great lessons about this, and what's the alternative. do you just hide away and not do anything, so you do the best you can to make your school the safest it possibly can be and this further illustrates the point that no one is immune from this and we need to keep vigilant and training and keep learning. >> sandra: the state rep, bob freeman, whose district includes the covenant school called the shooting an unimaginable tragedy, and so many stories living around of the corner, tight knit community walking

past the school and the church every day. russ, what can you tell us about the interactions you've had with residents and people on the ground there since this has happened. how are people doing? >> they are understandably shaken. i just spent time with the children who are awaiting being reunited with their parents, so there is anxiety around that process. the children are doing just fine under the circumstances. it's just, it looks like a school having classes with a bunch of huddles children around there eating, drinking, and sharing stories with one another. the parents are extremely anxious up in the sanctuary, and ready to be reunited. however, there is a process, so it can be done orderly and it can also be done correctly so that the right parent is matched with the right child. so that's the process ongoing as

we speak. there also is terrible, terrible tragic consequences and these parents are dealing with the unthinkable, and my heart goes out to them and i don't really -- i don't really know what to say to anybody in those circumstances, but i will be dealing with them some time in the future. >> john: yeah, councilman, you can't imagine what you say to the parent who has just lost a child in a school shooting. the motto of the school is shepherding hearts, empowering minds and celebrating childhood. that last part of it, celebrating childhood. childhood for every student in that school has now changed and how do they go forward into the future? >> well, you are out of my wheelhouse when you ask that question. we go forward by getting them the necessary help that's needed, i'm sure that the school will be heavily invested in

counseling and moving forward and children to some extent are resilient, and we are going to rely upon that resiliency along with professional counseling to get them through this. >> sandra: russ, you just gave us a little bit of an idea of what's happening inside the church there, so the reunification is happening still ongoing. many of the parents are on a completely different floor than the children, still waiting to be reunited many of them at this point? >> yes, yes, they are. and what's happening is we are doing this systematically, so that we can get all identifications confirmed, making sure we reunite the proper child with the proper parent or adult who is responsible for them. teachers and principals and those who are in this community know parents and guardians and

uncles and aunts who might be here to pick up those children, a part of the process to get it done as efficiently and expeditiously as possible. >> john: councilman, by and large, and it's not in every case, but by and large, these shooters, who go into schools armed to the teeth as you would expect any coward would against defenseless children and staff members choose soft targets and a lot is made of the fact resource officers were taken out of denver schools a couple years ago, and a shooting last week, and the mayor said it was a mistake to take the school resource officers out and he's going to put them back in immediately. this is a private school, it does not contract with the metro police department there in nashville for a school resource officer. but does this potentially speak

to the need that you have to have somebody at every school who is prepared to meet force with force? >> i can tell you that i'm a strong supporter of school resource officers. in my early days serving in the fbi i was an agent responsible for rutherford county, just to the southeast of here, when the sheriff of rutherford county at that time in the late 1980s instituted a school resource program in that county, and i thought it was a wonderful idea and from what i've observed since then in our public schools and other schools around the area, it's proved to be a great resource, not only for instances like this, but for other reasons, establishing relationships with kids, and furthering the relationship with the police department has with

children. i think it's a great idea and this is one of the many reasons that the program in my estimation is so good. >> sandra: just taking in some of the scenes there on the ground. the children on the left side of the screen there in that video outside of one of the busses that we are told busses were loaded up with children and then taken off to reunification areas with their parents. everyone parking where they could just to rush to hug their children. russ, this is a community that's going to feel this for quite some time. >> yes, it will. it will feel it for quite some time, and the process you describe is accurate. they are taking children on school busses to areas where they are staged and then transported to where we are now which is the woodmont baptist church at the intersection of

hillsboro pike and woodmont boulevard in green hills community. that's where parents should go. i suspect parents know where to go by now but in the event some do not, that's where to go and that's -- they can be educated on the process when they get here. but we are trying to reunite these children as quickly as possible, doing so efficiently and with due care. >> john: councilman, as a result of this, is there a sense that you are picking up, and i know it's the early minutes, let alone early hours or days after the incident, picking up a sense if it could happen at covenant, it could happen anywhere. and what do you and your fellow city councilmen and state legislators need to do to once and for all put an end to this? >> well, you know, i don't know. i think it's too early to have any conversations around policy matters related to this issue,

but if you really don't understand that this is possible considering what's gone on in the rest of the country, then, you know, this certainly can serve as a wake-up call. but this, we talk all the time about the fact that we need to be vigilant, because this can happen anywhere. it can happen in our community, it just did. it can happen in other communities in the future, it's -- it's unfortunate that we live in those times but that's the times in which we live and certainly we will examine this thing and react accordingly and then -- and discuss any policy matters that may come as a result of it. it's a bit early and premature to be talking about that. >> sandra: all right. we really appreciate you joining us, councilman, you know, any updates from the ground right now are helpful for anybody tuning in. once additional information what's happening, the latest we

know the reunification is happening with parents and children and sadly reporting that three children and three adults were killed in this shooting at a private christian grade school in nashville. it happened this morning. the female shooter also died after an exchange with police. we are told she's female. she's in her teens. it appeared to be she was in her teens, was armed with two assault-type rifle, said the police, and a pistol. this community is reeling obviously from all of this. we thank the councilman for joining us, john, and what a horrific thing. >> john: it's just awful to think you send your child to school whether it's here in nashville or anywhere else in the country and something like this happens, and over the course of time we'll look back at the way this all unfolded and likely find that there were improvements that could have been made to certain situations, certain circumstances that may have helped prevent this. but as the councilman pointed

out now is the time to grieve and to look after the families of the fallen and for those children who are so horribly shaken by the events of this morning. >> sandra: jonathan serrie is standing by, he's been reporting on this for us. jonathan, we know there will be another update from police, more details hopefully will be provided. they have been great about updating us with anything on the ground there, people want as much information as possible. what more do we know at this moment? >> local authorities have been very forth coming with information. unfortunately, a lot they do not know because the active shooter is now dead, we do not know her identity, police trying to work on that, trying to confirm her identity from all appearances they believe she was a teenager, but it's still unclear what her relationship was to the covenant school, whether there was any

relationship or whether the school was randomly targeted. covenant school, which serves kids pre-k through sixth grade, is located in nashville's green hills community, normally a quiet, upscale community. this is a moderate-sized religious school. not the type of place or neighborhood that you would expect something like this to happen, but this is a wake-up call. if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. and sandra, back to you. >> sandra: jonathan serrie, with an update on that. thank you very much, jonathan. >> john: all right, jump to the white house. karine jean-pierre is making a statement about the shooting. listen in. >> two dozen actions including the executive order he just signed last month or this month, pardon me. to the bipartisan safer communities act, legislation he signed into law after the tragedies in uvalde and buffalo.

he also believes it's not enough. we must do more and he wants congress to act because enough is enough. in his state of the union the president called on congress to do something, to stop the epidemic of gun violence, tearing families apart, tearing communities apart. how many more children have to be murdered before republicans in congress will step up and act to pass the assault weapons ban. to close loopholes in our background check system. or to require the safe storage of guns. we need to do something. once again, the president calls on congress to do something before another child is senselessly killed in a preventable act of gun violence. again, we need to do something. i also wanted to say a few words about the deadly tornados that tore through mississippi on friday night.

as the president said in a statement over the weekend, he and the first lady are praying for those who lost loved ones in these tornadoes. to that end, president biden approved an expedited major disaster declaration for mississippi early sunday morning and ordered federal funding be made available to support emergency response efforts in the areas affected by the severe storms. secretary mayorkas and fema administrator were also on the ground yesterday to assess the damage, survey emergency response efforts and meet with governor reeves and other state and local officials. we remain committed to doing everything we can to help those impacted by these storms and help them recover. tomorrow president biden will travel to durham, north carolina to kick off the investing in america tour, with a visit to wolf speed, a manufacturer of semiconductor chips. >> john: all right, karine jean-pierre at the white house with a statement about the

deadly tornadoes in mississippi and the federal aid that's going in there. at least 26 people killed in the horrible outbreak of tornadoes over the weekend and then reiterating in the wake of the school shooting, the president's desire for greater gun control as a way to try to address the situation there. sandra, you know, every time one of these happens there is a debate over how best to deal with it. it can be anything from making sure that guns do not get into the hands of people who will go in and do something like this, to making sure that all the doors at schools are locked. but it's a debate the country will have yet again as we sit here in the wake of a tragedy that has killed three young children and three staff members there at the covenant school. >> sandra: and they are still in the reunification process on the ground there. let's bring in former fbi director chris. after the situation, after the shooter was ultimately killed in

that exchange, the female shooter described possibly in her teens, the police now have a huge job working with the school, the church to reunify the parents who want to see their children and that is ongoing in nashville. hello, chris. >> hi. >> sandra: just a tragic, tragic situation we are seeing unfolding there, and time and time again people are going to ask themselves, how -- how are our schools secured? how can we prevent this from happening again. please jump in, chris. >> yeah, absolutely. i do school security assessments in this age group. pre-k to sixth, and first and foremost, a visible deterrent. i think that is first and foremost. you want to have an armed security presence at these grade schools, preferably an off duty police officer. traditionally don't see school resource officers in this -- in

pre-k to sixth but you can hire, and always my recommendation, is hire an off duty police officer during your school hours so that you deter something like this. a lot of things you can do towards response, notification, lockdowns, you can't do run, hide, fight with preschool, they don't have the judgment and the wherewithal to do that, so we recommend lockdowns. hope that happened in this situation. you know, a rapid response by the police is great but having an armed officer there, a visible deterrent is first and foremost and people get squeamish about that, especially faculty, a marshal appearance, if you will, at school, but we are about protecting the kids. this can happen anywhere. >> john: when you think about it, having a marshal appearance at the school is one thing, and maybe you don't want that image to represent your school