A female shooter wielding two “assault-style” rifles and a pistol killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday, authorities said. The suspect also died after being shot by the police.

The violence occurred at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school for about 200 students from pre-school to sixth grade.

The killings come as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year.

The police said the shooter appeared to be in her teens. The Nashville victims were pronounced dead upon arrival at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Centre.

Other students walked to safety on Monday, holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars, to a nearby church to be reunited with their parents. It was not immediately clear if she had any connection to the school.

The shooter entered the building through a side door, Aaron said at a news conference. When officers arrived, responding to a report of an “active shooter” at the school at 10:13am (local time), they heard gunshots on the second level of the school, he said.

Once there, members of a five-person team saw the person firing, police spokesman Don Aaron said. Two members of the team opened fire, killing her, he said.

Jozen Reodica heard the police sirens and fire trucks blaring from outside her office building nearby. As her building was placed under lockdown, she took out her phone and recorded the chaos.

“I thought I would just see this on TV,” she said. “And right now, it’s real.” On WTVF TV, reporter Hannah McDonald said that her mother-in-law works at the front desk at the school.

The woman had stepped outside for a break on Monday morning and was coming back in when she heard gunshots.

McDonald said she has not been able to speak with her mother-in-law but said her husband had.