[ad_1]
Editor’s note: (This story contains depictions of violence.)
(CNN) Police release details of 28-year-old shooting as grieving Nashville community grapples with shooting that killed three 9-year-olds and three adults at private Christian school to
The attack unfolded over 14 minutes at a Covenant school on Monday morning, when heavily armed shooters opened fire on and gained access to the elementary school, killing six people before being fatally shot by responding police officers.
The parents of the shooter, identified as Audrey Hale, told police they knew Hale had traded one weapon and believed that was the extent of it.
But Hale, who was being treated for an emotional disorder, legally purchased seven guns and hid them in his home, Drake said. Three of these weapons, including AR-style rifles, were used in Monday’s attack.
Police say the attack was pre-planned, with Hale having detailed maps of the school and documents related to the shooting, and scouting the likely location of a second attack in Nashville. Hale’s childhood friend also revealed that the shooter had sent him a disturbing message just before the attack.
It will be the 19th shooting at a school or university in 2023 that has injured at least one person, according to a CNN tally. It was also the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a year since his May attack in Uvalde, Texas, killed 21 people.
Rumors of missing people spread as terrified schoolchildren and teachers were safely evacuated from a Covenant school on Monday.
“The whole state of Tennessee was hurt yesterday, but some parents woke up childless, kids woke up without parents and teachers, spouses woke up without loved ones,” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said. Shooting.
RT VanOrden protects daughters from wind during vigil for victims of Tuesday’s fatal shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Computed” attacks and disturbing messages
The shooter sent a childhood friend a disturbing Instagram message saying “I’m going to die today” before 10 a.m. Monday and it would make news, friend Averianna Patton told CNN on Tuesday.
Patton, a Nashville radio host who was the shooter’s childhood basketball teammate, told CNN that he hasn’t spoken to him in years and doesn’t know why he received the message. He then said he called the Suicide Prevention Line and the Nashville-Davidson County Sheriff’s Office around 10:13 a.m.
That’s the same time police in Nashville say they received a 911 call of a shooter operating inside a Covenant school.
Documents left by Hale revealed that the attack was “calculated and planned,” police said. He said he had a picture of
The attackers were “ready to confront law enforcement and ready to do more harm than was actually done,” Drake said Monday.
Police said Hale had targeted a school, but students were believed to have been shot at at random.
Police spokesman Don Aaron said Tuesday that “this school, this church building was the target of the shooter, but it shows that the shooter was specifically targeting one of the six people killed.” No information is available at this time,” he said.
A motive is under investigation, but police say Hale was a student at a Covenant school at one point.
Hale graduated from Nashville’s Nossi College of Art and Design last year, the school’s president confirmed to CNN. According to her LinkedIn profile, Hale worked as a freelance graphic her designer and part-time grocery shopper.
Police have called Hale a “female shooter” and added at an evening press conference that Hale is transgender. CNN was asked to clarify.
Body camera footage shows police face-to-face with shooter
Surveillance video released by Metro Nashville police showed the shooter armed with three guns, firing through a glass door and climbing into the school.
Watch this interactive content on CNN.com
The police chief said the first call about the shooting was at 10:13 am and police arrived at the school at 10:24 am.
Police released body camera footage on Tuesday of two officers who opened fire on a gunman after they rushed to school on Monday.
Footage from police officers Rex Engelbart and Michael Collazo’s body-worn cameras shows Engelbart arriving at the school and spotting a woman outside who says the school is on lockdown but has two missing children. It starts with what you find.
After the officers were given the keys to open the building door, a group of five officers entered the school with fire alarms going off and quickly went to several rooms in an empty classroom to search for the suspect. increase.
As they cleared the room, officers heard gunshots coming from the second floor and ran upstairs, where Engelbert, armed with an assault-style rifle, fired multiple shots at a person near a large window before falling to the ground.
Collazo then shot the man on the ground four times with his pistol and shouted, “Stop moving!” The officer approaches the person, puts his gun away, and radios “Suspect down! Suspect down!”
The shooter died at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said.
According to Aaron, as a church-run private school, there was no school resource officer appointed by the city to protect the school.
Asked about the roughly 11-minute gap between when police received the first call of the shooter and when officers arrived at the school, the police chief told reporters: “From what I’ve seen, it’s not a problem.” But we always want to improve, we always want to be there in two or three minutes, so many things could have happened, like traffic blockages.”
who was the victim
Photos of Covenant school shooting victims Katherine Koons, Mike Hill, Cynthia Peake, Evelyn Deekhouse and Harry Scruggs.
The shooting victims included three nine-year-old students. Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and her Hallie Scruggs, daughter of the church’s senior pastor, Chad Scruggs. A substitute teacher, Cynthia Peake, 61, was also killed. Katherine Coons, a 60-year-old school principal; Mike Hill, a 61-year-old janitor, police said.
“Our community is heartbroken,” said Covenant Schools, a ministry of the Covenant Presbyterian Church, in a statement.
“We are grieving the tremendous loss and shocked by the horror that shattered our school and church,” the school said.
One of Koonce’s friends, Sissy Goff, went to the reunion center after the shooting and suspected something was wrong when Koonce wasn’t there.
“Knowing her, she’s so kind and powerful and puts people at ease with a voice that makes sense, so I felt like she would have been there before I handled it all,” Goff said. .
Robin Wolfenden prays Tuesday at a makeshift memorial service outside the Covenant Presbyterian Church’s Covenant School building after the shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.
The substitute teacher, Peake, is best friends with Tennessee’s first lady, Maria Lee, and was supposed to go to Leeds’ house for dinner on Monday night, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday. said in a video statement.
“Maria woke up this morning without one of her best friends, Cindy Peek,” the governor said.
Some of the victims’ families have issued statements as they mourn their loved ones. Hill said he was the father of seven children and the grandfather of 14 and loved cooking and spending time with his family, his family told CNN Associates. said in a statement obtained by the company WSMV.
Evelyn’s family released a statement calling her “a shining light in this world.”
Nashville Mayor John Cooper said the city of Nashville plans a vigil to remember those killed in the shooting Wednesday night at One Public Square Park at 5:30 p.m. local time. will be held at
“It’s important to stand together on this dark day for Nashville,” he tweeted. The city has also set up a fund to help survivors of the shootings, Cooper said.
CNN’s Melissa Alonso, Amara Walker, Tina Burnside, Amanda Jackson, Sarah Smart and Jamiel Lynch contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link
