Update: NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The shooter who killed three students and three staff members at a Christian school in Nashville legally bought seven weapons in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before carrying out the attack by firing indiscriminately at victims and spraying gunfire through doors and windows, police said Tuesday.
The violence Monday at The Covenant School was the latest school shooting to roil the nation and was planned carefully. The shooter 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.
The suspect, Audrey Hale, 28, was a former student at the school. Hale did not target specific victims — among them three 9-year-olds and the head of the school — but did target “this school, this church building,” police spokesperson Don Aaron said at a news conference Tuesday.
Hale was under a doctor's care for an undisclosed emotional disorder and was not known to police before the attack, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at the news conference.
If police had been told that Hale was suicidal or homicidal, “then we would have tried to get those weapons," Drake said. “But as it stands, we had absolutely no idea who this person was or if (Hale) even existed."
Hale legally bought seven firearms from five local gun stores, Drake said. Three of them were used in Monday’s shooting.
Hale's parents believed their child had sold one gun and did not own any others, Drake said, adding that Hale “had been hiding several weapons within the house.”
Hale's motive is unknown, Drake said. In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Drake said investigators don't know what drove Hale but believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
NASHVILLE (AP) — Six people died at a small, private Christian school just south of downtown Nashville on Monday after a shooter opened fire inside the building containing about 200 students, police said.
Police received a call about an active shooter at The Covenant School — a Presbyterian school — around 10:15 a.m. Authorities said that about 15 minutes after that call to police, the shooter was dead. The remaining students were ferried to a safe location to be reunited with their parents.
Rachel Dibble, who was at a nearby church where children were taken to be reunited with their parents, described the scene as everyone being in “complete shock.”
“People were involuntarily trembling,” she said. “The children … started their morning in their cute little uniforms, they probably had some Fruit Loops, and now their whole lives changed today.”
“Our community is heartbroken,” a statement from the school said. “We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our school and church. We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing.”
A reeling city mourned during vigils Monday evening. At Belmont United Methodist Church, tearful sniffling filled the background as vigil attendees sang, knelt in prayer and lit candles. They lamented the national cycle of violent and deadly shootings.
“We need to step back. We need to breathe. We need to grieve,” said Paul Purdue, the church’s senior pastor. “We need to remember. We need to make space for others who are grieving. We need to hear the cries of our neighbors.”
Here's what's known and not known about the shooting:
HOW MANY PEOPLE LOST THEIR LIVES?
Nashville police said six people, including three students, died. The victims were identified as Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; Mike Hill, 61; and Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, ages 8 and 9. Police officers also killed the shooter.
The website of The Covenant School, founded in 2001, lists a Katherine Koonce as the head of the school. Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the school since July 2016. Peak was a substitute teacher, and Hill was a custodian, according to investigators.
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WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE NASHVILLE SHOOTER?
For hours, police identified the shooter as a 28-year-old woman and eventually as Audrey Hale.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake did not say exactly what drove the shooter to open fire Monday before being killed by police. But he provided chilling examples of the shooter’s elaborate planning for the targeted attack.
“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” he told reporters. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”
He said in an interview with NBC News that investigators believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
Police said Hale was a former student of the school, but it was unclear if Hale had any current affiliation with the school or was related to anyone in the school at the time of the shooting. Police said the shooter had made a detailed map of the school and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the shooting.
Police said Hale had two “assault-style” weapons and a pistol when Hale shot through the front door to enter the building. At least two of them were believed to have been obtained legally in the Nashville area, police said. Investigators found a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other unspecified evidence during a search of Hale's home.
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HOW THE NASHVILLE SHOOTER DIED
A team of five Nashville police officers entered the school after the initial call, said Aaron, the police spokesperson. While clearing the first floor of students and staff, they heard shots being fired on the second floor.
Two of the officers opened fire in response and fatally struck Hale at about 10:27 a.m., police said.
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DO WE KNOW THE MOTIVE?
Investigators were sent to the shooter's home shortly after Hale, police said. Hale had a map of the school with a planned route for the shooting, and officers found writings, police said.
No motive has been confirmed by police, and it was also unclear if Hale was trying to target any specific person during the shooting.
Police Chief John Drake said officers found writings that detailed the plan to attack the school and potentially other locations. He said in an interview with that investigators believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
PEDIATRIC DOCTOR OUTRAGED OVER VIOLENCE, SHE HAD LEFT THE SCHOOL MINUTES BEFORE
A pediatric surgeon who left The Covenant School in Nashville moments before a shooter opened fire, killing six people, says she is horrified by the gun violence that has plagued the U.S.
Britney Grayson had just finished regaling children at the small religious grade school about Kenya, where she works on missions, when she drove out of the parking lot looking for a Starbucks. Moments later, the shooter entered the school and opened fire, killing three children and three adults.
After she received a text alerting her to the attack, Grayson took to Facebook to post about what she experienced, writing, “WHY ARE OUR CHILDREN BEING MASSACRED IN THEIR SCHOOLS?!”
Dr. Grayson notes that even those who survived Monday's violence will be forever changed. She says the U.S. is laying the burden of gun violence at the feet of children.
“Physically in the children that died, but also all of the children that were there today," she said. ”The counseling that’s going to be required and the way that this is going to affect their lives forever."
The horror of what happened had Grayson rattled hours later.
“It’s a weird feeling, knowing that just if it had happened just moments earlier, one, we might have been victims ourselves, and two, maybe I would have been there to offer immediate care,” she said.
In her post, Grayson wrote that she has operated on a school shooting victim. But, she says, she has never felt as close to the violence as she did this time.
“It’s different when you receive a patient at the hospital. I’m on my turf. I have all my skills and or tools with me and all of the team and everything,” she said. “That is definitely different than what we experienced today.”
Grayson wrote on Facebook that the kids were great and learned about Kenya, some Swahili words and what it means to be a missionary.
Later, when an initial death toll came out, she posted an update: “3 children are confirmed dead. 3 children who learned the word ‘Jambo’ this morning from us in chapel,” she wrote, using the Swahili greeting. “3 children who didn’t have to die. Lord be with us. Lord, be with us.”
