NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Authorities launched intense police physique digital camera footage Tuesday from a lethal capturing rampage at an area Christian elementary college that killed three college students and three staffers.

The Covenant College college students who died Monday have been all 9 years outdated, and the employees members have been of their 60s. The shooter was killed by responding officers, police mentioned.

Police launched greater than two minutes of surveillance footage late Monday, adopted by six minutes of physique digital camera video Tuesday from officers who encountered the shooter. Most got here from the physique digital camera of officer Rex Engelbert.

The footage reveals officers arriving on the college, asserting “Metro Police” as they enter the constructing and a few school rooms with rifles raised as alarms ring out.

“It sounds prefer it’s upstairs,” an officer says as they ascend the steps to the sound of gunfire. The video ends with the confrontation in an upstairs foyer space, when a number of pictures have been fired on the attacker, who fell amid shouts of “Cease shifting,” “Suspect down,” and, “Get your hand away from the gun.”

“I used to be actually impressed that with all that was occurring, the hazard, that any individual took management and mentioned, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,’ and went in and simply tried to finish this case,” Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake mentioned.

‘IT WAS TRULY HORRIFIC’: Nashville mourns after mass capturing 

The assault was the nation’s a hundred and thirtieth mass capturing of 2023, based on Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun violence information. The assault additionally marks the 89th capturing on Okay-12 college grounds in 2023 – a mean of 1 each day – based on the Okay-12 College Capturing Database. The web site counts any occasion when a firearm is fired or pointed at somebody in a faculty, or when a bullet hits college property.

Listed below are the newest updates: 

On Monday night time, Tennessee’s first girl Maria Lee was set to have dinner with certainly one of her finest pals, Cindy Peak, an outdated colleague from her trainer days who deliberate to spend the day instead trainer at The Covenant College.

However Peak by no means arrived residence on Monday. The 61-year-old was certainly one of six victims slain in one of many deadliest college shootings in Tennessee historical past.

“What occurred at Covenant College was a tragedy past comprehension,” Tennessee Gov. Invoice Lee mentioned in a recorded deal with Tuesday night time, his first prolonged feedback on the capturing.

“Like a lot of you, I’ve skilled tragedy in my very own life, and I’ve skilled the day after that tragedy. I awakened this morning with a really acquainted feeling, and I acknowledge that at the moment many Tennesseans are feeling the very same means — the vacancy, the lack of information, the determined need for solutions, and the determined want for hope.”

He added: “All of Tennessee was damage yesterday, however some mother and father awakened with out kids, kids awakened with out mother and father and with out academics, and spouses awakened with out their family members. Maria awakened this morning with out certainly one of her finest pals, Cindy Peak.” Learn extra right here.

— Melissa Brown, Nashville Tennessean

The attacker in Monday’s capturing bought seven firearms legally and was below medical take care of an unspecified “emotional dysfunction,” Drake mentioned at a Tuesday information briefing.

In response to Drake, the mother and father of Audrey Hale – the 28-year-old transgender man police have recognized because the shooter – informed officers they did not suppose their grown little one ought to personal weapons. They believed Hale had offered the one gun he had.

“Because it seems, she had been hiding a number of weapons inside the home,” Drake mentioned, including that regulation enforcement was not conscious of Hale earlier than the capturing.

Police mentioned Hale, who was assigned feminine at beginning however recognized as a person, purchased the firearms between October 2020 and June 2022. He introduced three to the varsity Monday, certainly one of them an AR-style rifle.

Drake mentioned the attacker didn’t seem like concentrating on anybody particularly on the college, the place Hale had been a scholar. He mentioned Hale left behind intensive writings however no motive for the capturing has been decided.

Law enforcement officials lauded for courageous, swift motion in opposition to closely armed shooter

In distinction to the painfully delayed police response to the capturing at a faculty in Uvalde, Texas, final 12 months, regulation enforcement officers in Nashville took fast motion Monday, probably saving a number of lives.

5 officers from the Metro Nashville Police Division initially descended upon The Covenant College after a name about an lively shooter got here in at 10:13 a.m., and by 10:27 a.m. the attacker had been gunned down, police mentioned. In Uvalde, the place 19 college students and two academics have been killed, it took greater than 70 minutes to finish the menace.

QUICK REACTION: 14-minute timeline: From the Nashville college shooter’s break-in to how police responded

Physique digital camera footage launched Tuesday reveals armed Nashville officers swiftly shifting from one room to a different within the college earlier than confronting Hale. The police division mentioned officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo ended the assault, they usually’re being extensively hailed for his or her braveness in pursuing and taking down a closely armed shooter.

“Excellent job @MNPDNashville,” the Fort Price (Texas) Police Officers’ Affiliation mentioned in a tweet. “These courageous officers ran towards the gunfire and eradicated the menace as they’re educated to do.”

President Joe Biden mentioned he spoke with Drake and “the two officers that went in and saved the lives,” and was engaged on reaching out to households of the victims.

With out referencing Uvalde, Drake made it clear standing round for greater than an hour in an active-shooter state of affairs was not an choice.

“I hoped this present day would by no means, ever come right here within the metropolis,’’ Drake mentioned Monday, “however we’d by no means wait to make entry and go in and cease a menace, particularly when it offers with our kids.’’

A former center college basketball teammate says she obtained a message from Hale on Instagram at 9:57 a.m. Monday – lower than 20 minutes earlier than the primary 911 calls from the varsity.

Averianna Patton informed WTVF-TV she noticed the message that Hale deliberate to die by suicide and that Patton would see it on the information.

“Audrey, you’ve gotten a lot extra life to reside,” Patton responds within the messages. “I pray God retains and covers you.”

“Someday this can make extra sense,” Hale wrote. “I’ve left behind greater than sufficient proof behind. However one thing unhealthy is about to occur.”

Patton mentioned she known as the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Workplace and was instructed to name Nashville’s non-emergency quantity. It was too late.

Patton, who informed The Tennessean she considered herself as kind of a “massive sister” to Hale, and mentioned Hale had shared suicidal ideas with former teammates and felt she needed to attempt to assist. 

“I am simply numb proper now,” mentioned Patton, who had stayed in contact with Hale by way of the years. “I’ve actually mind-blowing moments like, ‘What on this planet?'”

Contributing: Cassandra Stephenson, Nashville Tennessean

In surveillance footage launched by Nashville police late Monday, Hale is seen driving to the varsity. Hale, armed with a number of firearms, together with an AR-style rifle, shoots by way of glass doorways to enter the constructing. Hale walks in hallways and goals the assault rifle earlier than the video cuts off. The video, with no audio, is greater than two minutes lengthy.

ARMED CONGRESSMAN: Andy Ogles, GOP congressman representing Nashville, criticized for posing with weapons in household Christmas picture

Police recognized the scholar victims as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9. The staffers have been Katherine Koonce, 60, recognized on the Covenant web site as “head of faculty”; substitute trainer Cynthia Peak, 61; and custodian Mike Hill, 61.

Hallie was the daughter of Chad Scruggs, lead pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church, based on an announcement from his former church in Dallas.

“We love the Scruggs household and mourn with them over their treasured daughter Hallie,” Mark Davis, senior pastor at Park Cities Presbyterian Church, mentioned in an announcement. “Collectively, we belief within the energy of Christ to attract close to and provides us the consolation and hope we desperately want.”

Koonce earned a bachelor’s diploma from Vanderbilt College in Nashville, based on the varsity web site. She earned a grasp’s in training from Georgia State College in Atlanta and a doctorate from Trevecca Nazarene College, a Christian college in Nashville.

Peak was raised in Leesville, Louisiana, and attended Leesville Excessive College by way of her sophomore 12 months in 1977, when her household relocated to Shreveport, KALB-TV in Alexandria, Louisiana, reported. She later graduated from Texas Christian College in Fort Price, the station added.

Tim Dunavant, a pastor at Hartsville First United Methodist Church, mentioned Hill was the final worker he employed when Dunavant ran the kitchen on the Covenant church and faculty greater than 13 years in the past.

“I’ve a sense, when all of it comes out, Mike’s sacrifice saved lives,” Dunavant wrote in a Fb publish. “I’ve nothing factual to base that upon. I simply know what sort of man he was. And I do know he’s the form of man that may do this. Goodbye Mike, I’m going to overlook these encouraging texts out of the blue from you.”

Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, was an illustrator and graphic designer.

Hale entered the Covenant college with an AR-style rifle, an AR-style pistol and one other handgun, police mentioned. After the capturing, Drake mentioned officers seized written materials and a map describing how the assault would unfold, in addition to a plan to shoot up a distinct Nashville college apparently scrapped due to “an excessive amount of safety.’’

“We have now some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the precise incident,” Drake mentioned at a information convention Monday afternoon. “We have now a map drawn out of how this was all going to happen.”

Drake informed NBC Information that Hale might need had “some resentment for having to go to that faculty.”

Invoice Campbell, a headmaster of The Covenant College from 2004 to 2008, informed NBC Information he remembers Hale as a 3rd grader on the college in 2005 and a fourth grader in 2006. Hale might have transferred to a different college after that, he mentioned.

Nashville police mentioned 5 officers responded to a 911 name that arrived at 10:13 a.m., and the shooter fired on arriving police autos from a second-story window.

The officers discovered the shooter on the second ground of the constructing that homes the varsity and a Presbyterian church. The menace was over by 10:27 a.m., police mentioned.

“The police division response was swift,” police spokesman Don Aaron mentioned. “Officers entered the primary story of the varsity and start clearing it. They heard pictures coming from the second stage. They instantly went to the gunfire.”

The Covenant College is a non-public college based in 2001 that serves college students in pre-kindergarten by way of sixth grade, based on its web site. On a given day, barely over 200 college students and 42 employees members are on the college, Aaron mentioned.

The varsity is on the campus of Covenant Presbyterian Church within the metropolis’s Inexperienced Hills neighborhood, about 9 miles southeast of downtown Nashville. It is subsequent door to a Nashville Hearth Division station and fewer than a mile south of Nashville’s largest buying district.

The varsity’s motto is “Shepherding hearts. Empowering Minds. Celebrating Childhood.”

U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., whose district consists of the positioning of Monday’s mass capturing, obtained widespread criticism from gun management advocates for a Christmas picture he posted in 2021 of his household posing with weapons. The picture, which remained on the congressman’s Fb web page as of Monday night time, reveals his spouse and two of his three kids smiling and holding firearms in entrance of a Christmas tree.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS! The Ogles Household,” the publish reads, including in quotes: “The very environment of firearms anyplace and in all places restrains evil interference – they deserve a spot of honor with all that is good.” Learn extra right here.

– Joey Garrison

Contributing: Trevor Hughes, Grace Hauck, and Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY; Melissa Brown, Rachel Wegner, Kirsten Fiscus, and Craig Shoup, Nashville Tennessean

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