Survivor of Highland Park shooting after Nashville school shooting: 'Aren't you guys tired of covering this?'
NASHVILLE (CBS) -- A woman who survived the Highland Park July 4th parade shooting stepped in front of the cameras Monday after police provided an update on a mass shooting at a Nashville school.
Police said a 28-year-old suspect opened fire at the Covenant School in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville Monday morning – killing three children and adults.
Authorities have identified the victims as 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce, and 61-year-old Mike Hill. All three adults worked at the school. Police identified the shooter as Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old woman from Nashville, who officials said was armed with at least two assault weapons and a handgun.
Hale was shot and killed by police.
Moments after an update from police on the shooting ended, Ashbey Beasley stepped in front of the cameras.
"Aren't you guys tired of covering this?" Beasley said. "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."
Beasley is just one of a number of Highland Park survivors who have lobbied on Capitol Hill to, urging lawmakers to ban assault weapons.
Seven people were killed and dozens more were wounded when a gunman opened fire on the July 4th parade in Highland Park last year.
Beasley and her son survived the parade massacre. She stopped in Nashville Monday on her way back from Washington, D.C.
Beasley has been there a dozen times since the Highland Park tragedy – trying to lobby members of Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban.
In Springfield, Beasley has also lobbied for a statewide assault weapons ban.
Just on Friday, Beasley and her son, Beau, gathered at the National Mall to call for congressional action on gun control during the Generation Lockdown summit.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) echoed that message Monday in Washington.
"As today's shooting in Nashville Tennessee demonstrates, there is more work to be done. The fact that this is a daily occurrence in America is unconscionable," Durbin said. "I urge my colleagues to come together on a bipartisan basis."
In the Nashville shooting Monday, Metro Police Chief John Drake said their preliminary investigation into the shooting indicated that it was a targeted attack. The probe suggested that the shooter was at one time a student at the school, although Drake did not know exactly when they may have attended.
Police discovered "a manifesto" as well as "maps drawn of the school in detail," according to the chief.
