NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The shooter who killed six individuals, together with three youngsters, at a Nashville elementary faculty Monday had detailed maps of the ability, thought of one other goal and left behind writings that will make clear a motive, authorities mentioned.
The attacker, recognized as Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, was a former scholar at The Covenant Faculty who broke in Monday morning by taking pictures the glass from a door. The intruder gunned down three younger college students and three employees members earlier than being confronted and killed by police, Metro Nashville Police Division Chief John Drake mentioned.
In surveillance footage launched by Nashville police late Monday, Hale is seen driving to the college to hold out the taking pictures.
Armed with two AR-style weapons – one a rifle, the opposite a pistol – together with a handgun, Hale is seen taking pictures into glass doorways to enter the constructing. The video then exhibits Hale strolling in hallways and aiming an assault rifle earlier than the video cuts off.
In response to a tweet from Nashville police, the shooter had “vital ammunition.”Drake mentioned two of the weapons had been legally bought within the Nashville space however didn’t specify which of them.
Police mentioned 5 officers promptly responded to a 911 name that arrived at 10:13 a.m. Once they arrived, the shooter fired on arriving police autos from a 2nd story window, the Nashville police tweeted, displaying footage of bullet-pierced home windows on police cruisers.
The officers discovered the assailant on the second flooring of the constructing housing the college and a Presbyterian church and neutralized the menace by 10:27 a.m., police mentioned.
“I hoped this present day would by no means, ever come right here within the metropolis,’’ Drake mentioned, “however we might by no means wait to make entry and go in and cease a menace, particularly when it offers with our kids.’’
Police initially recognized the shooter as a feminine, however later mentioned Hale was assigned feminine at beginning and later recognized as male.
Drake mentioned officers discovered written materials together with a map describing how the assault would unfold, in addition to a plan to shoot up a distinct Nashville faculty that Hale scrapped due to “an excessive amount of safety.’’
Requested if there was a correlation between the shooter’s gender identification and the assault, Drake mentioned: “There’s some idea to that. We’re investigating all of the leads and, as soon as we all know precisely, we’ll let .’’
In an interview with NBC Information, Drake mentioned investigators imagine Hale had “some resentment for having to go to that faculty.”
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Victims recognized, three of them beneath age 10
Police recognized the victims as Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, all of them age 9, and Mike Hill, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Cynthia Peak, 61. Drake later mentioned one of many youngsters was 8 and about to show 9 however didn’t specify who. The Tennessean mentioned Koonce was the college’s headmaster.
Three youngsters and two adults had been taken to Monroe Carell Jr. Kids’s Hospital at Vanderbilt with gunshot wounds, and all 5 had been pronounced useless there, mentioned Craig Boerner, spokesperson for Vanderbilt College Medical Heart. The sixth sufferer was not taken to the hospital, police spokesman Don Aaron mentioned.
“That is the final word crime, when schoolchildren and caregivers are the victims of mindless gun violence,” Glenn Funk, Davidson County District Lawyer Common, mentioned in a information convention.
What occurred within the Covenant Faculty taking pictures?
The shooter entered by means of a aspect entrance of the college and went to the second flooring “firing a number of pictures,” Aaron mentioned, including that each one doorways had been locked.
Police obtained a name of an lively shooter at 10:13 a.m., Aaron mentioned. Officers responded “swiftly,” entered the primary flooring and commenced clearing the world, he mentioned. They “instantly went to the gunfire,” he mentioned.
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Two of the 5 officers on the ground opened fireplace on the shooter and killed Hale by 10:27 a.m., Aaron mentioned. The intruder was in a “lobby-type space,” not a classroom, Aaron mentioned.
Kendra Loney, a spokesperson with Metro Hearth, mentioned rescue crews responded and tried to avoid wasting lives.
The remaining college students had been escorted out of the constructing with college and employees, and buses took them to a website the place college students had been being reunited with their dad and mom, Loney mentioned. “We’re positive that they heard the chaos that was surrounding this,” she mentioned.
One police officer had a hand damage from minimize glass, Loney and Aaron mentioned. Nobody else was wounded, Aaron mentioned.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will help the Metro Nashville Police Division within the investigation, mentioned TBI Director David Rausch. Officers with the FBI and particular brokers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had been on the scene.
President Biden: ‘We’ve got to do extra’
President Joe Biden referred to the taking pictures as a “sick” act and reiterated his name for Congress to ban assault weapons.
Biden ordered the American flag on the White Home to be flown at half-staff in honor of the victims. The White Home later mentioned the president spoke to Tennessee Gov. Invoice Lee and Nashville Mayor John Cooper concerning the taking pictures.
“We’ve got to do extra to cease gun violence,” he mentioned. “It is ripping our communities aside, ripping on the very soul of the nation. We’ve got to do extra to guard our colleges so they don’t seem to be became prisons.”
First girl Jill Biden commented on the assault throughout her opening remarks at a Nationwide League of Cities occasion in Washington. “I’m really with out phrases, and our kids deserve higher,” she mentioned. “We stand, all of us, with Nashville in prayer.”
What’s the Covenant Faculty in Nashville?
The Covenant Faculty is a non-public faculty based in 2001 that serves college students in pre-kindergarten by means of sixth grade, in response to its web site. On a given day, barely over 200 college students and 42 employees members are on the faculty, Aaron mentioned.
The varsity is on the campus of Covenant Presbyterian Church within the metropolis’s Inexperienced Hills neighborhood, about 9 miles southeast of downtown Nashville. It is subsequent door to a Nashville Hearth Division station and fewer than a mile south of Nashville’s largest purchasing district.
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As a result of a church operates the college, no Nashville cops had been assigned to the constructing, Aaron mentioned. Officers had been reviewing video from the college, he mentioned.
In response to the taking pictures, the college mentioned it should proceed to prioritize the well-being of the neighborhood and requested for privateness as neighborhood members course of the incident.
“Our neighborhood is heartbroken. We’re grieving great loss and are in shock popping out of the phobia that shattered our college and church,” the college mentioned in a press release Monday night time.
“We’re centered on loving our college students, our households, our college and employees and starting the method of therapeutic.”
89th taking pictures on faculty grounds this yr
The assault marks the 89th taking pictures on Ok-12 faculty grounds in 2023, in response to the Ok-12 Faculty Taking pictures Database. Final week, a 17-year-old scholar shot and wounded two college members at a highschool in Denver.
“I used to be actually moved to tears to see this and the youngsters as they had been being ushered out of the constructing,” Drake mentioned.
There have been 130 mass shootings within the U.S. this calendar yr, in response to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass taking pictures as no less than 4 individuals injured.
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Illinois resident Ashbey Beasley was on trip and a couple of block away from the college when she heard pictures Monday morning. Beasley, who was on the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park final summer season when a gunman opened fireplace, ran over to the scene.
“Aren’t you bored with this,” she mentioned, taking on the microphones after a information convention. “How is that this nonetheless occurring?”
Tennessee officers ‘heartbroken’ over faculty taking pictures
Tennessee Gov. Invoice Lee mentioned he was “carefully monitoring the tragic scenario.”
Nashville Mayor John Cooper thanked first responders and medical professionals and mentioned his “coronary heart goes out to the households of the victims.” He wrote on Twitter: “In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, lengthy checklist of communities to expertise a college taking pictures.”
Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn mentioned she was “heartbroken to listen to concerning the taking pictures.” She wrote on Twitter: “My workplace is in touch with federal, state, & native officers, & we stand prepared to help. Thanks to the primary responders engaged on website. Please be a part of us in prayer for these affected.”
Adrienne Battle, director of Metro Nashville Public Faculties, mentioned she was “grieving at present over the tragic homicide of kids and college employees proper right here in our neighborhood,” calling the killings an “unimaginable lack of life.”
“We don’t know the entire particulars of how or why this occurred, and we could by no means totally know,” Battle mentioned. “At Metro Faculties, we have now invested appreciable assets to strengthen safety at our services in response to the far too many, far too usually cases of faculty shootings throughout the nation through the years.”
Church service remembers baby
On the Woodmont Christian Church, a field of tissues sat on the finish of every pew because the solemn crowd started the lengthy technique of grieving for the victims.
Senior minister Clay Stauffer shared by means of tears a narrative of Evelyn Dieckhaus on the finish of the service. Dieckhaus was a 3rd grader on the Covenant Faculty and her sister, a fifth grader, is a member of the disciples class on the church.
Evelyn’s sister cried as she mentioned, “I don’t wish to be an solely baby.”
The Woodmont Christian Church might be organizing a fund for the affected households as a means to assist with counseling prices.
Contributing: Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY; Chris Gadd, Rachel Wegner, Kirsten Fiscus, and Craig Shoup, Nashville Tennessean; The Related Press
