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The videos were taken by the body cameras of two officers of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and show the police raid that ended with the death of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, perpetrator of the shooting inside a private Christian school. The shooter identified as a transgender man and wrote a “manifesto” prior to committing the massacre. According to authorities, Hale obtained the guns legally despite suffering from an “emotional disorder.”
The six-minute images show a police team outside the school preparing their raid to stop the shooting inside the institution. Security forces are later seen entering the building and securing every classroom in the school.
“The children are all locked up, but we have two children that we don’t know where they are…”, an alleged school teacher mentions to officer Rex Engelbert, as can be seen in the video taken from his body camera.
Moments after the police search inside the Coventant School began, officers went up to the second floor of the building upon hearing gunshots. It is on the second floor that they find Hale and the images show the armed confrontation between both parties that ends with the death of the shooter.
Hale was armed with an assault rifle and a 9mm handgun with which he entered the building after shooting a front window.
Images taken from the school’s security camera show the suspect entering the building, wearing a black bulletproof vest and a red cap, then progressing through the corridors as the school’s alarms sounded.
The shooting had a balance of six fatalities, three children part of the student body and three adult members of the school community of the institution.
A “manifesto” foresaw the tragedy
Nashville authorities, in conjunction with FBI agents, report having collected multiple pieces of evidence about Hale’s plans. Among them, a text detailing the reasons for the shooting and a handmade map of the school.
The head of the Nashville Police Department, John Drake, commented to local media that the text found “indicates that there were going to be shootings in multiple places and that the school was one of them.”
Drake also commented that the research team believes Hale “had some resentment about having to go to that school when he was little.”
Active shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, drove this Honda Fit to the Covenant Church/school campus this morning and parked. MNPD detectives searched for it and found additional material written by Hale. pic.twitter.com/ftGX74ecKr
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) March 28, 2023
Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, identified with male pronouns on her social media. She was a student of the Covenant College as a child and although she had premeditated the attack on the educational institution, her exact motives have not been revealed as of yet.
The attacker suffered from an emotional disorder and legally bought the weapons
Despite being under medical treatment for suffering an “emotional disorder,” Hale had seven firearms in his possession and all were purchased legally, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake revealed, who released new details about the attack.
The weapons that Hale had were acquired in different stores in the city and he hid them in his house. For the attack on Monday he used three of them, a pistol and two assault rifles.
His parents were questioned and they said they only knew that Hale had a gun, but they thought he had sold it, so they were not alert.
They also said they believed their son “shouldn’t own guns” because of his emotional problems.
The authorities revealed that on the day of the attack, Hale left his house with a red bag where it is assumed that he carried the weapons, his parents asked what was inside it, however, they never received an answer.
During the attack, Hale targeted the school and the church, but did not direct the attack on any specific person, so it has been difficult to clarify the causes that motivated him, according to a report by police spokesman Don Aaron.
It was also known that the attacker had explored a shopping center as a second possible place in the city to carry out the shooting, but decided not to do it there, since there were strong security controls.
90 school shootings in the United States so far in 2023
According to information from the K-12 Shooting Database, the tragedy at Covenant School marks the 90th school shooting on US soil this year alone. The same source collected 303 incidents with a firearm within school institutions in 2022, a historical peak since 1970.
The United States has a serious problem with massacres in the country’s educational institutions. In reaction to Monday’s event, President Joe Biden called on US congressmen to toughen gun control laws.
With Reuters and AP
