LAST UPDATE | 28 Mar 2023
THE PERSON WHO killed three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville legally bought seven firearms in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before the attack, police have said.
Three nine year olds died, as well as two teachers – one of whom was the longtime principal – and a custodian at the Covenant School, a small Christian academy for about 200 students.
Police said today that the shooter, Audrey Hale, bought seven firearms in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before the attack.
The young victims were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all age nine. The adults killed were Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60, the school principal; and Mike Hill, 61.
Hale, who was killed by police, had prepared maps detailing surveillance and entry points at the school, and also left a written manifesto that suggested further attacks at other locations were planned.
Authorities said Hale was not on their radar before the attack. Police say Hale was under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed emotional disorder.
In a chilling video released by Nashville police, Hale is seen shooting through a set of glass doors into the school, before stalking the empty halls with an assault rifle drawn as emergency alarm lights flash.
Armed with two assault rifles and a handgun, Hale, wearing a black military-style vest, camouflage pants and red baseball cap, advanced through the building, opening doors and walking through what appears to be the front desk area.
Police said at least two of the weapons were purchased legally, adding Hale had multiple rounds of ammunition and was “prepared for confrontation with law enforcement.”
Throughout yesterday, police gave unclear information on the gender of the killer.
For hours, police identified them as a 28-year-old woman and eventually named the shooter as Audrey Hale.
Then at a late afternoon press conference, the police chief said that Hale was transgender.
In an email today, police spokesperson Kristin Mumford said Hale “was assigned female at birth. Hale did use male pronouns on a social media profile”.
Authorities said Hale was not on their radar before the attack. Police say Hale was under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed emotional disorder.
Police have released videos of the shooting, including edited surveillance footage that shows the shooter’s car driving up to the school, glass doors being shot out and the shooter ducking through one of them.
Additional video, from officer Rex Engelbert’s bodycam, shows a woman greeting police outside as they arrive at the Covenant School on Monday. “The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don’t know where they are,” she tells police.
“OK, yes, ma’am,” Engelbert replies.
The woman then directs officers to Fellowship Hall and says people inside had just heard gunshots. “Upstairs are a bunch of kids,” she says.
Three officers, including Officer Engelbert, search rooms one by one, holding rifles. “Metro Police,” officers yell.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” one officer yells.
As alarms are heard going off in the school, one officer says, “It sounds like it’s upstairs.”
Officers climb stairs to the second floor and enter a lobby area. “Move in,” an officer yells. Then a barrage of gunfire is heard.
“Get your hands away from the gun,” an officer yells twice. Then the shooter is shown motionless on the floor.
Police earlier said Hale had drawn a detailed map of the school, including potential entry points, and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre, authorities said.
Police response times to school shootings have come under greater scrutiny after the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in which 70 minutes passed before law enforcement stormed the classroom.
In the search for a motive, Nashville police chief John Drake told NBC News that “there’s some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school.
He said Hale “targeted random students in the school.”
In a short phone interview with ABC News, the shooter’s mother, Norma Hale, said “It is very, very difficult right now … I think I lost my daughter today.”
Police later found material in the car that Hale drove to the scene.
Asked whether Hale’s gender identity may have been a factor, police said they were investigating all leads.
As the US digested another mass shooting, mourners left flowers and stuffed toys at a growing makeshift memorial outside the school. Some kneeled in prayer.
Stacie Wilford, a nurse, told AFP it was “so scary” to have a shooting so close to home. She has an eight year old who attends a school only two miles down the road from Covenant.
“Whenever you hear about school shootings in other states, yes, you feel it, but when it’s at your back door, it just sets in differently,” Wilford said.
Chad Baker, 44, said he felt “horrified and very sad.”
“I carry a gun with me most days, but I don’t need an assault rifle,” he told AFP. “I don’t think it should be as easy to buy flowers as it is a gun.”
School shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, where the proliferation of firearms has soared in recent years.
President Joe Biden described the latest shooting as “sick” and said gun violence was “ripping the soul of this nation,” as he urged Congress to pass a ban on the assault weapons often used in mass shootings.
Biden’s calls for Congress to reinstate the national ban on assault rifles, which existed from 1994 to 2004, have run up against opposition from Republicans, who are staunch defenders of the constitutional right to bear arms.
The deadlock in Washington has come despite uproar over such massacres, including the one last year when a shooter in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 students and two teachers.
And in 2012, 26 people, including 20 children, were killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut.
There have been 129 mass shootings – in which four or more people were shot or killed – so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
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