New details have emerged from Monday’s shootings in Nashville, Tennessee, that left three children and three adults dead when an assailant targeted a Christian school, making it the latest American community to be rocked by the despair and trauma of gun violence, as police search for a motive.
At a news conference Tuesday, Metro Nashville police Chief John Drake said authorities learned through interviews with the assailant’s parents that the shooter had legally purchased seven firearms from five local gun stores. Three were used in the attack at the Covenant School, Drake said.
The parents said the shooter, whom authorities identified as 28-year-old former student Audrey Hale, was “under doctor’s care for emotional disorder,” Drake said. “Law enforcement knew nothing about the treatment (Hale) was receiving, but the parents felt (Hale) should not own weapons.”
According to Drake, Hale’s parents believed that the shooter had sold their only weapon and were unaware that Hale was hiding other weapons within the home. Hale left their parents’ home Monday carrying a red bag and dismissed their parents’ questions about what was in it. Hale’s parents were under the impression their child didn’t own weapons and didn’t think any differently, Drake said.
Tennessee does not currently have an extreme risk law, also known as a red flag law, which allows law enforcement and family members to petition for a court order to temporarily prevent someone in crisis from accessing guns.
“But if it had been reported that Hale was suicidal or that she was going to kill someone, that had been made known to us, then we would have tried to get those weapons,” Drake said. “As it stands we had absolutely no idea.”
Police used female pronouns to refer to Hale, whom they previously said identified as transgender.
Drake said police are still searching for a motive.
Police on Tuesday released body camera footage worn by two of the officers who responded to the shooting.
The shooter was fatally shot by officers in an encounter that was captured on the footage. The body camera shows that within about 3 minutes and 20 seconds of parking at the school, officers located and killed the shooter.
The entire incident lasted under 15 minutes, with the first call coming in at 10:13 a.m. and officers engaging the shooter at 10:24 a.m., Drake said. He commended officers’ response, saying it was “really quick.”
“They heard gunfire and immediately ran to that and then took care of this awful situation,” Drake said.
The shooter, who was killed by police, was described as a 28-year-old woman armed with at least two assault rifles and a handgun.
In one body camera video, worn by Officer Rex Engelbert, officers arrive at the Covenant School and are met outside by an employee.
“The kids are all locked down, but we have two that we don’t know where they are,” the employee tells Engelbert. She tells him someone “fired into my window” and that “they are upstairs,” pointing toward the school’s second floor. Another employee hands Engelbert keys to the building as the first employee tells officers gunshots were heard in Fellowship Hall, located at the end of the ground floor. “Upstairs, there are a bunch of kids,” the first employee says.
Footage then shows several officers clearing the hallway and various rooms on the ground floor before going to the second floor. Fire alarms ring through an otherwise empty hallway decorated with student artwork and St. Patrick’s Day projects.
Volleys of gunfire can be heard as officers make their way to the second floor, where they meet additional officers. The pops of gunfire grow louder as police make their way through the floor and around the corner to a common area near a second-floor window. There’s the sound of broken glass, which police said came from the attacker shooting at police cars arriving on campus, and Engelbert opens fire on the assailant. Officer Michael Collazo fires several more shots as he and another officer approach the assailant and yell at them to stop moving and get their hands away from the gun. The video blurs out the shooter’s face and their body on the floor.
Police also released Collazo’s body camera video that shows several officers who first rushed to the second floor to find the door locked. They make their way through the ground floor, clearing the building as they go, until they reach the second floor and hear the crack of gunshots. “Shots fired, shots fired, move!” Collazo orders. It’s on the second floor where Collazo regroups with Engelbert, and the two officers fire the fatal shots that killed the shooter.
Drake said he was not sure whether either Engelbert, a four-year veteran, or Collazo, who had nine years on the force and worked as a paramedic on the SWAT team, had been in similar situations previously.
“I was really impressed, with all that was going on, the danger, that somebody took control, and said let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” he said.
Investigators are still searching for a motive in the attack and have said that the assailant left behind a “manifesto,” though police have not described the manifesto in detail. Drake said at a news conference Monday that authorities found the assailant’s “detailed maps” of the school with surveillance and entry points. Drake also said police found material that suggested Hale had considered an attack at a second location in Nashville, but abandoned the idea because it had “too much security.”
The shooter had “multiple rounds of ammunition,” was “prepared for confrontation with law enforcement,” and was believed to have acted alone, Drake said.
Surveillance footage released by Nashville police Monday night shows the assailant driving to the campus in what police said was a Honda Fit. At around 10:11 a.m., the attacker, who police said was armed with assault-style weapons and a handgun, shoots through a set of glass doors and ducks through the broken doors to enter the building. The footage then shows the shooter wandering the empty halls with a weapon drawn.
The police identified the three children killed in the attack as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all age 9; and the three adults as head of school Katherine Koonce, 60; Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher; and Mike Hill, 61, a custodian. Drake said the shooter “randomly targeted” the six victims.
The carnage at the small private school in Nashville added to the escalating toll of gun violence across America as familiar debates on gun regulation played out. According to the Gun Violence Archive, an independent online database that tracks gun violence using police, government, media and other public data, there have been 129 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, including Monday’s massacre in Nashville. The organization defines a mass shooting as a minimum of four people shot — either injured or killed — not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured.
In a Monday news conference, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden had been briefed and was in touch with federal and local officials involved in the shooting. Jean-Pierre called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban. “The president has been very clear,” she said. “We need to take more action.”
She noted that Biden earlier this month signed an executive order aimed at curbing gun violence in the wake of the deadly Monterey Park, California, dance hall shooting. But, she said, further action from Congress is needed to create more robust gun control to help ensure these shootings stop.
In his own remarks, Biden called the attack “sick” and urged Congress to pass the assault weapons ban, saying gun violence is “ripping at the very soul of the nation.”
Biden ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half staff until Friday.
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(Los Angeles Times staff writers Terry Castleman, Kevin Rector and Erin Logan contributed to this report.)
