NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Authorities launched intense police physique digital camera footage Tuesday from a lethal taking pictures rampage at a neighborhood Christian elementary college that killed three college students and three staffers.
The Covenant Faculty college students who died Monday had been all 9 years outdated, and the workers members had been of their 60s. The shooter was killed by responding officers, police mentioned.
Police launched greater than two minutes of surveillance footage late Monday, adopted by six minutes of physique digital camera video Tuesday from officers who encountered the shooter. Most got here from the physique digital camera of officer Rex Engelbert.
The footage exhibits officers arriving on the college, saying “Metro Police” as they enter the constructing and a few lecture rooms with rifles raised as alarms ring out.
“It sounds prefer it’s upstairs,” an officer says as they ascend the steps to the sound of gunfire. The video ends with the confrontation in an upstairs foyer space, when a number of pictures had been fired on the attacker, who fell amid shouts of “Cease shifting,” “Suspect down,” and “Get your hand away from the gun.”
“I used to be actually impressed that with all that was happening, the hazard, that any individual took management and mentioned, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,’ and went in and simply tried to finish this case,” Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake mentioned.
‘IT WAS TRULY HORRIFIC’: Nashville mourns after mass taking pictures
The assault was the nation’s 129th mass taking pictures of 2023, in accordance with Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun violence knowledge. The assault additionally marks the 89th taking pictures on Ok-12 college grounds in 2023 – a median of 1 day-after-day – in accordance with the Ok-12 Faculty Capturing Database.
Listed here are the newest updates:
Shooter purchased seven firearms, was being handled for ’emotional dysfunction’
The attacker in Monday’s taking pictures bought seven firearms legally and was underneath medical look after an unspecified “emotional dysfunction,” Drake mentioned at a Tuesday information briefing.
In response to Drake, the dad and mom of Audrey Hale – the 28-year-old transgender man police have recognized because the shooter – informed officers they did not assume their grown little one ought to personal weapons. They believed Hale had bought the one gun he had.
Hale was assigned feminine at delivery however recognized as a person.
“Because it seems, she had been hiding a number of weapons inside the home,” Drake mentioned, including that regulation enforcement was not conscious of Hale earlier than the assault on the varsity.
Drake additionally mentioned the attacker didn’t look like concentrating on anybody particularly on the college, the place Hale had been a scholar. He mentioned Hale left behind intensive writings however no motive for the taking pictures has been decided.
Law enforcement officials lauded for courageous, swift motion in opposition to closely armed shooter
In distinction to the painfully delayed police response to the taking pictures at a faculty in Uvalde, Texas, final 12 months, regulation enforcement officers in Nashville took fast motion Monday, seemingly saving a number of lives.
5 officers from the Metro Nashville Police Division initially descended upon The Covenant Faculty after a name about an lively shooter got here in at 10:13 a.m., and by 10:27 a.m. the attacker had been gunned down, police mentioned. In Uvalde, the place 19 college students and two academics had been killed, it took greater than 70 minutes to finish the menace.
QUICK REACTION:14-minute timeline: From the Nashville college shooter’s break-in to how police responded
Physique digital camera footage launched Tuesday exhibits armed Nashville officers swiftly shifting from one room to a different within the college earlier than confronting Hale. The police division mentioned officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo ended the assault, they usually’re being broadly hailed for his or her braveness in pursuing and taking down a closely armed shooter.
“Excellent job @MNPDNashville,” the Fort Price (Texas) Police Officers’ Affiliation mentioned in a tweet. “These courageous officers ran towards the gunfire and eradicated the menace as they’re skilled to do.”
With out referencing Uvalde, Drake made it clear standing round for greater than an hour in an active-shooter state of affairs was not an choice.
“I hoped at the present time would by no means, ever come right here within the metropolis,’’ Drake mentioned Monday, “however we might by no means wait to make entry and go in and cease a menace, particularly when it offers with our youngsters.’’
Shooter reached out to ex-teammate on social media earlier than Nashville college assault
A former center college basketball teammate says she obtained a message from Hale on Instagram at 9:57 a.m. Monday morning – lower than 20 minutes earlier than the primary 911 calls from the varsity. Averianna Patton informed WTVF-TV she noticed the message that Hale deliberate to die by suicide and that Patton would see it on the information. The messages present Hale telling Patton that he now not wished to dwell.
“Audrey, you’ve got a lot extra life to dwell,” Patton responds within the messages. “I pray God retains and covers you.”
“Someday this may make extra sense,” Hale wrote. “I’ve left behind greater than sufficient proof behind. However one thing dangerous is about to occur.”
Patton mentioned she referred to as the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Workplace and was instructed to name Nashville’s non-emergency quantity. It was too late.
Surveillance footage exhibits armed suspect arriving in school
In surveillance footage launched by Nashville police late Monday, Hale is seen driving to the varsity. Hale, armed with a number of firearms, together with an AR-style rifle, shoots by way of glass doorways to enter the constructing. Hale walks in hallways and goals the assault rifle earlier than the video cuts off. The video, with no audio, is greater than two minutes lengthy.
ARMED CONGRESSMAN:Andy Ogles, GOP congressman representing Nashville, criticized for posing with weapons in household Christmas picture
Who had been the victims?
Police recognized the coed victims as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all age 9. The staffers had been Katherine Koonce, 60, recognized on the Covenant web site as “head of college”; substitute instructor Cynthia Peak, 61; and custodian Mike Hill, 61.
Hallie was the daughter of Chad Scruggs, lead pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church, in accordance with an announcement from his former church in Dallas.
“We love the Scruggs household and mourn with them over their valuable daughter Hallie,” Mark Davis, senior pastor at Park Cities Presbyterian Church, mentioned in an announcement. “Collectively, we belief within the energy of Christ to attract close to and provides us the consolation and hope we desperately want.”
Koonce earned a bachelor’s diploma from Vanderbilt College in Nashville, in accordance with the varsity web site. She earned a grasp’s in training from Georgia State College in Atlanta and a doctorate from Trevecca Nazarene College, a Christian college in Nashville.
Peak was raised in Leesville, Louisiana, and attended Leesville Excessive Faculty by way of her sophomore 12 months in 1977, when her household relocated to Shreveport, KALB-TV in Alexandria, Louisiana, reported. She later graduated from Texas Christian College in Fort Price, the station reported.
Tim Dunavant, a pastor at Hartsville First United Methodist Church, mentioned Hill was the final worker he employed when Dunavant ran the kitchen on the Covenant church and faculty greater than 13 years in the past.
“I’ve a sense, when all of it comes out, Mike’s sacrifice saved lives,” Dunavant wrote in a Fb submit. “I’ve nothing factual to base that upon. I simply know what sort of man he was. And I do know he’s the type of man that will try this. Goodbye Mike, I’m going to overlook these encouraging texts out of the blue from you.”
Who was the suspect?
Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, was an illustrator and graphic designer.
Hale entered the Covenant college with an AR-style rifle, an AR-style pistol and one other handgun, police mentioned. After the taking pictures, Drake mentioned officers seized written materials and a map describing how the assault would unfold, in addition to a plan to shoot up a special Nashville college apparently scrapped due to “an excessive amount of safety.’’
“We have now some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the precise incident,” Drake mentioned at a information convention Monday afternoon. “We have now a map drawn out of how this was all going to happen.”
Drake informed NBC Information that Hale might need had “some resentment for having to go to that faculty.”
Invoice Campbell, a headmaster of The Covenant Faculty from 2004 to 2008, informed NBC Information he remembers Hale as a 3rd grader on the college in 2005 and a fourth grader in 2006. Hale might have transferred to a different college after that, he mentioned.
Nashville taking pictures suspect killed by police in ‘swift’ response
Nashville police mentioned 5 officers responded to a 911 name that arrived at 10:13 a.m., and the shooter fired on arriving police automobiles from a second-story window.
The officers discovered the shooter on the second flooring of the constructing that homes the varsity and a Presbyterian church. The menace was over by 10:27 a.m., police mentioned.
“The police division response was swift,” police spokesman Don Aaron mentioned. “Officers entered the primary story of the varsity and start clearing it. They heard pictures coming from the second degree. They instantly went to the gunfire.”
What’s The Covenant Faculty in Nashville?
The Covenant Faculty is a non-public college based in 2001 that serves college students in pre-kindergarten by way of sixth grade, in accordance with its web site. On a given day, barely over 200 college students and 42 workers members are on the college, Aaron mentioned.
The college 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.
The college’s motto is “Shepherding hearts. Empowering Minds. Celebrating Childhood.”
Native congressman’s household picture attracts criticism
U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., whose district contains the positioning of Monday’s mass taking pictures, obtained widespread criticism from gun management advocates for a Christmas picture he posted in 2021 of his household posing with weapons. The picture, which remained on the congressman’s Fb web page as of Monday evening, exhibits his spouse and two of his three youngsters smiling and holding firearms in entrance of a Christmas tree.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS! The Ogles Household,” the submit reads, including in quotes: “The very ambiance of firearms wherever and in all places restrains evil interference – they deserve a spot of honor with all that is good.” Learn extra right here.
– Joey Garrison
Bacon reported from Arlington, Va. Contributing: Rachel Wegner, Kirsten Fiscus and Craig Shoup, Nashville Tennessean; Trevor Hughes, Grace Hauck, Jorge L. Ortiz and Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY
