A female shooter and a transexual at a high school: the shooting spree opened fire on a student in the hallways
In the video, the shooter can be seen shooting through glass doors to get into the school. The suspect is shown in the video pointing a weapon through the hallways.
At an evening press conference, the police claimed that Hale was a female shooter and that she was a transexual. CNN asked if she used male pronouns on her profile, to which she responded that she did.
Hale, who was expelled from the Christian school a few years ago, was involved in the shooting and had been considering a second location in Nashville but decided against it because there was too much security.
Armed with three firearms, the shooter got into the elementary school by firing through a door, beginning an attack that unfolded over about 14 minutes and spanned two floors at the school.
“I was literally moved to tears to see this and the kids as they were being ushered out of the building,” the police chief said during a Monday news conference.
The shooting death of Evelyn Peak, Katherine Koonce and Mike Hill in a Nashville high-trafficking student at the Waffle House
All three students shot and killed were 9 years old. They were named Evelyn, Hallie, and William. Three adults killed in the shooting were identified as 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce and 61-year-old Mike Hill, police said.
A day after her other son was placed on security at a nearby school, the mother of a Waffle House shooting victim said she was brought back to that painful moment.
The shooter was “someone that had multiple rounds of ammunition, prepared for confrontation with law enforcement, prepared to do more harm than was actually done,” the police chief said in a news conference.
At least two of the weapons that Hale obtained legally were found and police believe he used them to hurt people. Police said that a sawed off shotgun and a second shotgun were among the evidence seized during a search of Hale’s home.
The man who had been firing through the window at the police cars was confronted by the people upstairs. Two officers shot and killed the man at 10:09 a.m., according to the police spokesman.
“I was hoping this day would never ever come here in the city. Drake said at the Monday news conference that they would not wait to make entry to stop a threat to their children.
“This school prepared for this with active shooter training for a reason. We do not want to think that it is going to happen to us. But experience has taught us that we need to be prepared because in this day and time it is the reality of where we are,” Nashville Metropolitan Councilman Russ Pulley told CNN.
Katherine Koonce was identified as the head of the school on its website, which also says she attended school in Nashville at Vanderbilt University and Trevecca Nazarene University, along with getting her master’s degree from Georgia State University.
Mike Hill was identified in the staff section of the Covenant Presbyterian Church’s website, which is now offline. He was listed as facilities/kitchen staff. The friend of Mike Hill told CNN his name was Mike Hill. Hill, 61, was a custodian at the school, per police.
“Law enforcement is conducting its investigation, and while we understand there is a lot of interest and there will be a lot of discussion about and speculation surrounding what happened, we will continue to prioritize the well-being of our community. We appreciate the outpouring of support we have received, and we are tremendously grateful to the first responders who acted quickly to protect our students, faculty and staff. We ask for privacy as our community grapples with this terrible tragedy – for our students, parents, faculty and staff,” the statement continued.
The Tennessee School Shooting: “We need to stand together on a dark day for Nashville,” Biden tweeted in a Twitter message on Tuesday
The Covenant School is a private Christian school founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church and teaches preschool through 6th grade, according to its website.
“It is important that we stand together on this dark day for Nashville,” he said in the tweet. The city established a fund to help the survivors of the shooting.
The overall rate of homicides for children in the US has increased over the last decade, according to a December study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, and homicide is a leading cause of death.
Biden said that Congress needs to pass an assault weapons ban. A bipartisan solution is extremely unlikely with a slim Democrat majority in the Senate and a GOP-led House.
Body camera footage showing the fatal confrontation between police and the armed man who attacked a grade school in Nashville was released by authorities on Tuesday.
Six people — including three children — were killed in the shooting, and the suspected attacker was killed by police within minutes of the first call of an active shooter.
The massacre drew messages of sympathy from politicians, including President Biden and others across the U.S., and it reignited calls for Congress to do more to prevent school shootings.
The shooting of a 16-year-old former student at a school: Engelbert, Collazo, and the officer who shot and killed Hale
Hale was a former student of the school. Authorities initially identified Hale as a woman but later clarified that Hale used he/him pronouns.
The police officers’ body-worn cameras captured the scene before Rex Engelbert arrived at the school and he found a woman outside that said there were two children who were not accounted for.
She tells him, “The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don’t know where they are.” She also describes the layout of the school and says children are upstairs.
After the officer is given a key to open a door into the building, a group of five officers enter the school amid wailing fire alarms and immediately go into several empty classrooms rooms to look for the suspect.
The gunshots grow louder, and Engelbert enters an atrium and encounters the shooter standing near a window. Engelbert fires four times, and the shooter falls to the ground.
Engelbert is a four-year veteran of the force, and Collazo is a nine-year veteran. 14 minutes after the first emergency call, the officers shot and killed Hale.
The police chief said that the two officers were trying to understand what happened after the shooting. Drake said he had also spoken with Biden, who told him he intended to reach out to the officers too.
Drake said that the shooter had legally purchased seven firearms from five local gun dealers. Three of those weapons were used in the attack.
The Shooter’s Message: An Active Shooter Leaving a College with a Gun and Hunting for a Lifetime
Bill Lee stated “All of Tennessee was hurt yesterday but some parents woke up without children, children woke up without parents and teachers and spouses woke up without their loved ones.”
A childhood friend said that the shooter sent a message to her at 10 a.m. Monday, saying he was going to kill himself and would be on the news.
The shooting player’s childhood basketball teammate, who was now a radio host, told CNN she hadn’t spoken with him in years but she still received the message. She called the suicide prevention line and the sheriff’s office around 10:15 a.m.
Drake said the shooter had left behind a map of the school, as well as details about how to carry out an attack.
The president of Nossi College of Art & Design told CNN that Hale graduated last year. Hale worked as a part-time grocery shopper and was a graphic designer.
Collazo then appeared to shoot the person on the ground four times with a handgun, yelling “Stop moving!” The officers radio ‘Suspect down!’ after approaching the person and moving a gun away. A suspect down.
The police chief told reporters that he didn’t have a problem with the 11 minute gap between when police received the first call of an active shooter and when they arrived at the school. But we always want to get better. There were a lot of things that could have happened when we got there, and we always wanted to get there in two or three minutes.
The Revised Tennessee First Lady Michelle Lee-Peak: How she and her family lost their loved ones in the wake of a mass shooting
One of Koonce’s friends came to the reunification center after the shooting but did not see Koonce there.
She is kind and strong and has a voice of reason so she would have been in front handling everything, so I felt like I had a feeling.
The Tennessee First Lady Maria Lee and Peak were going to dinner together on Monday night, according to Bill Lee.
Maria woke up this morning without one of her best friends, Cindy Peak, said the governor.
As they mourn their loved ones, some families have released statements. The family of Hill said that the man was a father of seven children and grandfather to 14 who loved to cook and spend time with his family.
Mayor John Cooper said there will be a wake and a memorial for the people killed in the mass shooting. The venue is One Public Square park, which will be in the local time zone.
The extraordinary videos, which show the officers racing down hallways lined with backpacks and children’s jackets before their confrontation with the suspect, have horrified a nation once again grasping for answers in the wake of another mass shooting.
Hale fired shots in front of the school entrance that shattered a glass door, according to the video. Hale was carrying three weapons and was able to enter through the broken door.
Police said that Mike Hill was shot inside that door. The 61-year-old, known to the school’s students as “Big Mike,” was among the first killed.
The sound of gunfire is heard in the hallway. In the video, an officer said it sounded like it was upstairs. As police run up the stairwell towards the heavy booms, it grows louder.
“Suspect down!” He yelled into his radio. After a labored breath, he requested that his team’s radio traffic be stopped so that they can communicate across clear airwaves.
A Memorino of Evelyn Scruggs, the Epitome of Light, and the Loss of a Deep-Inelastic Student
In the aftermath, community members paid their respects to the lives lost, placing bouquets, toys, balloons and a flower-wreathed cross at a makeshift memorial just outside the school.
Evelyn’s family said that their hearts were broken. “We cannot believe this has happened. Evelyn was the epitome of light in this world.
“We love the Scruggs family and mourn with them over their precious daughter Hallie,” the Texas congregation’s Senior Pastor Mark Davis said. We know that the power of Christ will bring us comfort and hope when we need it most.
Koonce had been a member of the faculty for 16 years, according to a statement on the school’s website, and is survived by her husband and two children.
The statement mentioned that the faculty, staff, and students who worked with her mourned the loss of a dedicated educator, leader, and dear friend.
Koonce’s friend and former colleague Jim Lee told CNN he and his wife flew to Nashville after learning she had been killed. They described a live and witty character, deeply connected to her students and staff, but also a fierce administrator.
She was a person of grace, despite her amazing confidence. She had great pastoral and counseling skills, but she also had some CEO skills that could tell you if you need to get in your place.
“I have watched school shootings happen over the years and never thought I would lose a loved one over a person trying to solve a temporary problem with a permanent solution,” she said.
Drake couldn’t confirm if Hale had targeted the school for religious reasons. He added that police are working with the FBI to fully examine Hale’s writings.
Tennessee School Shooting-Covenant Hale and the Gun Violence Archive: After the First Day, GOP Sen. Kennedy, Rep. Garland, and the Speaker’s Corner
Similarly, being under a doctor’s care alone wouldn’t have met the threshold to prohibit the sale of weapons to Hale. Tennessee law only prohibits the sale of guns to people who have been found to be a danger to themselves or others.
Drake said police would’ve tried to get the weapons if they received a report of Hale threatening to kill someone.
Other Republican leaders quickly got on board with Hawley’s framing choice. In a budget hearing on Tuesday, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asked Attorney General Merrick Garland whether he planned to open a hate crime investigation into the shooting “for the targeting of Christians.”
According to the Gun Violence Archive, the U.S. has only 130 tracked mass shootings this year. And, as with these previous shootings, lawmakers were once again quick to concede that Monday’s act of violence likely won’t be enough to shake off the stalemate on gun reform.
President Biden rhetorically asked “Why do I keep saying this if it is not happening?” after he repeated his call for an assault weapons ban.
“I don’t see any real role we could do other than mess things up,” he said on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. “I don’t think you’re going to stop the gun violence. You’ve got to change people’s hearts.”
“We can all agree on one thing, that every human has great value. “And we will act to prevent it from happening again,” said Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican in the video address.
He didn’t clarify what that action would look like. Lee has been a vocal opponent of gun control throughout his time in office, calling for every school to have a resource officer staffed on campus.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/29/1166804786/nashville-school-shooting-covenant-hale
The Red State’s decision to change the carry age of Tennessee from 21 to 18 is likely to prompt a resolution of the state’s gun-independence problem
The red state seems to be leaning more toward its reputation as a gun-friendly state. The judge quietly allowed Tennessee to change its carry age from 21 to 18.