Tennessee’s NASHVILLE — According to investigators, the person who murdered three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville recently lawfully purchased seven handguns and hid them from their parents before the attack.
The conflict The most recent school shooting to rock the country occurred on Monday at The Covenant School. Together with the principal of the grade school, a custodian, and a substitute teacher, three 9-year-old pupils were also fatally injured.
The suspect, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, had attended the institution before. According to police, the shooter did not pick out particular victims.
According to the authorities, Hale was not on their radar before the incident. According to the police, Hale was being treated by a specialist for an unspecified emotional illness.
The incident was captured on tape, and the police have released edited surveillance footage that depicts the shooter ducking through one of the glass doors as the shooter’s automobile approaches the school.
Further bodycam footage taken by Officer Rex Engelbert on Monday shows a woman welcoming police outside as they enter The Covenant School. “The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don’t know where they are,” she tells the police.
“OK, yes, ma’am,” Engelbert replies.
After that, the woman points police to Fellowship Hall and claims that individuals there had just heard gunfire. “Upstairs are a bunch of kids,” she says.
With weapons in hand, three officers, including Engelbert, search each room individually. “Metro Police,” officers yelled.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” one officer yells. As the school’s sirens start to sound, one officer replies, “It sounds like it’s upstairs.”
Police enter a lobby after ascending the stairs to the second floor. “Move in,” A policeman yells. Then, a hail of bullets can be heard.
“Get your hands away from the gun,” an officer yells twice. The gunman is then seen lying lifeless on the ground.
Before carrying out the atrocity, police claimed that Hale had mapped out the school in great detail, including any possible avenues of entry, and had spied on it.
After the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which took 70 minutes before law enforcement entered the classroom, police response times to school shootings have come under increased scrutiny.
Although they have not specified how long it took them to arrive, Nashville police stated that 14 minutes had elapsed from when the original report of a gunman in the school and the suspect was slain.
Police have released surveillance footage of The Covenant School’s grounds, and it has a time stamp of shortly before 10:11 a.m. when the shooter fired out the glass doors.
Although they had not specified exactly when they arrived, police said they received a call about a shooter at 10:13 a.m.
The edited bodycam footage did not contain time stamps. Tuesday’s email requesting information about the police’s arrival time and whether any version of the footage had time stamps received no quick response from a police representative.
About Hale’s gender, the police have not been entirely sure. Police had a woman as the shooter for hours on Monday. The police chief revealed Hale was transsexual at a press conference in the late afternoon.
Police spokesperson Don Aaron declined to go into more detail on Hale’s identification after the press briefing.
Police spokesperson Kristin Mumford stated Hale, in an email on Tuesday, “was given a female gender at birth. On a social media site, Hale did use male pronouns.”
The victims were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, three 9-year-old kids. The adults were Michael Hill, 61, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Katherine Koonce.
The Covenant School, a Protestant institution established in 2001, identifies Katherine Koonce as its head of school on its website. She is listed as the school’s principal on her LinkedIn profile as of July 2016.
Investigators found that Hill worked as a custodian and that Peak was a substitute teacher.
Although declining to elaborate on Hale’s motivations, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told NBC News that authorities think the shooter harbored “some anger for having to go to that school.”
The latest in a string of mass shootings that have alarmed the nation with violence in schools, Drake gave terrifying examples of the shooter’s meticulous planning for the targeted attack.
He told reporters, “We have a manifesto. We have certain papers that pertain to this day, the actual incident, that we’re going over. “We have a map of how this was all going to take place.”
Police claimed Hale had two “assault-style” firearms and a handgun. According to the chief, at least two of them were thought to have been legally acquired in the Nashville region.
A sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun, and other unidentified evidence, according to police, were found during a search of Hale’s residence.
President Joe Biden claimed to have spoken with the mayor, police chief, and senators of Nashville, Tennessee. He begged Congress to enact stricter gun control regulations, such as a ban on assault rifles.
“The Congress has to act,” Biden said. Most Americans find it strange that anyone may own assault weapons. “It’s a crazy idea. They’re against that.”
The Covenant School, established as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, is located in Nashville’s affluent Green Hills neighborhood, just south of the city’s famous Bluebird Cafe, a favorite hangout for artists and songwriters.
The school has about 200 children in grades preschool through six and about 50 employees.
According to a database by The Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University in collaboration, there have been seven mass killings at K–12 schools since 2006 in which four or more persons were killed within 24 hours. The shooters were men in each one.
The database excludes school shootings with fewer than four fatalities, which have increased significantly in recent years. For instance, two days after one another, school shootings occurred in the Denver and Dallas areas just last week.
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As officers at The Covenant School heard gunfire coming from the second floor, they started cleaning the first story, according to Aaron. Afterward, according to police, the gunman fired at the approaching police officers from a second-story window.
Police named the cops who shot Hale dead as Engelbert, a four-year veteran of the force, and Collazo, a nine-year veteran.
In one perspective of the security video, made public on Monday, kids can be seen swinging in the background as the shooter’s automobile approaches the school. Next, a photo from inside the school shows the gunman ducking through one of the smashed glass doors as it was blasted out.
Another video from inside the building reveals the gunman passing through a school hallway while carrying a weapon with a large barrel, entering a space marked “church office,” and exciting again.
The shooter can be seen walking down a further lengthy corridor with his revolver pulled in the latter segment of the video. The footage has no sound and doesn’t show the gunman communicating with anyone else.
Because the school is administered by a church, according to Aaron, no police officers were present or assigned to it at the time of the incident.
Patricia Gault is a seasoned journalist with years of experience in the industry. She has a passion for uncovering the truth and bringing important stories to light. Patricia has a sharp eye for detail and a talent for making complex issues accessible to a broad audience. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a commitment to accuracy and impartiality, earning a reputation as a reliable and trusted source of news.